Lupo Mutaret (18)
eighteen
Sam didn't know how much time had passed.
He was vaguely aware that the so-called hunters had come and gone a few times, and that Karl had come through twice with a glass of water. The fact that he'd been alone both times suggested that he might have been sneaking them as opposed to following orders, and despite the situation he'd found himself in, Sam felt hope swirling in the pit of his empty stomach. He could vaguely recall the man's earlier argument that he wouldn't allow Sam to be killed until he shifted, and he was quite content to cling to the hope that as long as he could keep the instinct contained, he stood a chance of convincing Karl to help him escape.
The other three, however, were nothing short of psychotic.
Whilst Marie seemed content with using the cattle prod (and what little logic he could draw from his concussed brain informed him that her reluctance to get close was something he could use against her), Byron and the ginger hunter - who Sam had come to learn was called Cook - had no such reservations. The shocks that left his whole body jerking and spasming in their wake were inter-spaced at random intervals by sharp punches and kicks, harsh lashes by a thick line of rope being used as an improvised whip, and even a few searing cuts with a silver knife.
Sam knew enough about shifter biology to know that if the concussion, shock or their torture didn't kill him first, the silver poisoning that was bound to kick in at any moment would do it for them. He wondered, absently, which would be worse.
Already he felt cold to the bone, shivering constantly, and he'd thrown up more than once. He body was randomly twitching, even though it had been - by Sam's estimate - at least a couple of hours since he'd last been shocked, and he couldn't quite convince himself that Marie had done some kind of permanent damage. His vision was blurred, dark at the edges and swimming sickeningly, and he'd long since abandoned any plans of trying to get to his feet.
He knew that he needed to escape, but he was no longer sure that he had the strength to do it. Even if, by some miracle, he managed to not only get to his feet but also remain standing, he would also to procure some kind of weapon and take out three hunters (he refused to count Karl in that, because surely the man would have the sense to just let him go?) before he even made it outside.
As it stood, it was all he could do to stay conscious.
Something shifted in his peripheral vision, and the hunter painstakingly twisted his head to try and make out what it was. The movement sent waves of pain through his body, and the world momentarily whited out; by the time that he managed to blink his eyes open again, it was to the realisation that there was something merely inches from his face.
Sam's heart jumped and he instinctively braced himself for the blow that was about to come. Instead, something warm and wet darted across his face, following the trails of dried sweat and the few tears that had managed to slip free.
It took Sam longer than it should have to realise that it was the dog, long tail wagging happily behind it. He had half a mind to push it away, but the promise of contact that didn't have pain had him stretching out a shaky hand and slopping running it through the animal's short fur; the dog made a contented noise, flopping eagerly onto the floor. It's back slammed into his stomach and the hunter sucked in an agonised breath, hand tugging on the dog's skin in a way that had to be painful.
The dog made no effort to move, tail thumping happily against the concrete, and Sam could feel warmth begin to seep back into his skin as the animal rested against him. The tremors in his body began to ease up, the painful contractions easing, and he let himself relax back onto the cold concrete for the first time.
His eyes drifted shut to the feeling of the dog's heart beating against his chest.
**
Bobby's truck had a distinctive clunking growl that Dean was sure he'd recognise anywhere - it wasn't a healthy noise, exactly, but it brought a heady rush of relief with it all the same.
It had been nearly three days since Sam had first disappeared and Dean had phoned the family friend, all-but begging for his help in finding his baby brother. Since then, Bobby had phoned numerous times with promises that even though he hadn't found anything, it didn't mean that he wasn't trying - his searches of nearby CCTV footage hadn't turned up anyone recognisable, so he was relying on word of mouth to give them a hint about who they were dealing with.
When he'd phoned early that morning, Dean had expected another conversation of the same vague reassurances about having a lead, or turning up a new contact. Instead, Bobby had been short and to the point - he'd said that he knew who it was, and that he was on they way. He'd refused to tell the younger man who it was over the phone, instead telling him that he'd be there as soon as possible and hanging up the phone.
Dean didn't think he'd ever been so pissed off in his life.
"It's about goddamn time you got here-" He growled as he yanked the motel door open, voice trailing off as he realised for the first time that Bobby wasn't alone. He went from pissed off to furious in the blink of an eye, body shifting to block the doorway even as the hand holding the door turned white at the knuckles. "What the hell is he doing here?"
Donovan rolled his eyes, sighing dramatically. "I'm here to help you find your brother, of course."
"Oh yeah?" Dean snarled, making no effort to move. "Sure. That makes sense, considering he killed two of your pack members."
"I told you that we repay our debts. Sam saved my life - I owe him by services."
"Sure," Dean nodded, tone sarcastic and slicing. "So how are you going to help? Got some magical shifter power that's going to help you magically save the day?"
Donovan grinned, a quick flash of sharp white teeth that Dean refused to be intimidated by. "As a matter of fact, I do. Last time we met, your brother forced his way into my head. An untrained mind using that much power leaves a... trace, of sorts. A connection. I should be able to use that connection to find him - or to narrow down the search, at the very least."
Dean's scowl deepened, and he was moments away from telling the shifter to grow stuff himself, when he felt his father's hand descend on his shoulder. The Winchester patriarch's wedding band bit into skin as he squeezed the joint, and he tugged his son backwards - more than a little surprised by the gesture, Dean allowed himself to be dragged back into the room, raising an eyebrow when the older man nodded for Donovan to come inside.
John sighed. "We could use all of the help we can get, son. I don't like it any more than you do, but if it helps us find Sam..."
The fact that he was right didn't help Dean's mood any, and he shot Bobby a dark look as the hunter passed him. The man had the decency to look at least a little ashamed of himself, shrugging his shoulders slightly.
"Just thank your lucky stars that you didn't have to ride all the way here with him," He offered. "He's one obnoxious son of a bitch."
Dean shook his head, nodding towards the motel table, where Jim was seated. The hunter was deliberately tracing a finger along the edge of the map, clearly doing his best to duck his head and avoid the entire confrontation. Recalling some of the confrontations between Bobby Singer and John Winchester that the Pastor had witnessed in the past, Dean couldn't really blame him.
His eyes were fixed on Donovan when he spoke. "We've marked out possible bases. Why don't you do your super-psychic shifter shit, while Bobby fills us in on who the hell took my brother, and why?"
The shifter shrugged his shoulders, crossing the room to sink into the chair next to Jim and take in the scribble-dotted map. Jim glanced up when the larger man sat next to him, and began explaining their system of seemingly random markings without being prompted. Bobby, on the other hand, shifted uncomfortably.
"You're not exactly going to like what I have to say." He confessed. "A friend of mine who runs a Roadhouse put the word out about a group of guys working together. Apparently two hunters stopped by yesterday, looked like they'd gotten into a bit of a fight. Ellen was suspicious, so she got a few drinks in them..."
John raised an eyebrow. "And they talked?"
"Said they'd been hunting a couple of shifters with some friends," Bobby nodded. "The location added up, so Ellen pressed for details. Turns out that they killed the other one, like you said, and two of the hunters - married couple by the name of Marie and Byron Denvers - decided to take the second one hostage. I'd imagine that'd be Sam. He also said that they weren't working alone; somehow they managed to enlist the help of two more by the names of Karl Mason and Daniel Cook."
"What do you mean by 'hostage'?" Dean demanded. The word left a bitter taste in his mouth, and he swallowed compulsively. "It's not like they've been sending ransom demands or anything."
Bobby shook his head. "The way these two understood it, Marie and Byron had some kind of theory about shifter packs communicating psychicly... apparently she said something about the connection working better if they were in pain. Her plan was to keep Sam around as bait for the rest of his pack."
"Shit," John swore loudly, kicking out at a bedpost with enough force that the entire wooden frame creaked ominously. "That means she's expecting someone to come after him."
Bobby nodded his head solemnly, and there was a hesitation before he spoke again. "There's something else you should know. It's not the first time I've heard of the Denver's. I got a call a couple of years ago from Elkins. He ran into them on a skinwalker hunt - kept insisting that the two of them had 'played' with it before they killed the damn thing. Kept it alive for days. I figured he was making shit up again - you know how much of a crackerbox he is these days. Now I'm not so sure."
Dean swallowed against the bile that rose in his throat at the implication of those words. "You think they're torturing him."
"I think it's more than likely, yes."
Next to him, John paled dramatically, and Dean could hear Jim suck in a sharp breath behind him.
"Actually," Donovan put in, and his voice had an edge to it that had Dean's forehead creasing. "I'd say that's pretty much definite. From what I'm getting through the link, the kid's in agony. And his head's messed up, which isn't exactly making my job any easier-"
The shifter cut off with a startled breath, lifting his eyes to meet Dean's as he pressed a hand against his temple. His eyes were wide and panicked, and Dean's knees threatened to buckle at the expression on his face.
***
The dalmatian was still there when Sam rose out of his slumber, pressed firmly against Sam's side as if it could tell that it was the only thing keeping him warm. Amazingly, the hunter felt a little stronger after his impromptu nap; now that he had his own personal space heater pressed against his front, his shivering had stopped aggravating his injuries. He was still in pain, that was for sure, but he knew better than to waste an opportunity.
His vision was better than it had been - clear enough, now, for him to make out where he was going. He painstakingly shifted his body, rolling onto his side and forcing himself to his hands and knees. One of his arms refused to bear his weight, so he curled it protectively around his stomach as he staggered to his feet. The collar tugged sharply around his throat, threatening to send him toppling back to the floor, but he managed to catch himself by some minor miracle.
He was grateful that the hunter's had unbuckled his wrists to gain easier access to the vulnerable flesh of his stomach, because a brief and painful poke around the collar on his neck revealed that it was some kind of metal contraption held together by a small padlock at the front. He couldn't hold in his grin, stumbling slightly as he locked his sights on a small, rickety-looking table on the far side of the room.
Pens and paper were dotted across the top of it, and Sam mentally crossed his fingers as he slowly forced his feet to carry him across the room. He was weaving slightly, refusing to take his eyes off his goal in the fear that he might never make it there if he did. By some minor miracle, the chair attached to his collar was longer than he'd assumed, stretching nearly all of the way across the room... far enough for him to hook an outstretched leg around the table and dragging it closer.
The effort of it sent him toppling back down to the concrete, but he refused to dwell on the way in which the impact seemed to reveberate through his own body, stealing his vision for a too-long moment. He forced himself to his feet blindly, blinking dazedly as he dragged his hands through the table's contents, fingers finally sagging on a paperclip.
His hands shook as he tugged it free, and he slowly manoeuvred himself back to the floor, concentrating as best as he could on the thin piece of metal. Lock picking had always been one of his specialities - he could pick even the hardest lock, and do it twice as fast as his brother or his father, but it seemed to take forever to mould the metal to the shape he needed, and even longer until the lock clicked and the collar fell to the floor with a near-deafening clatter.
Sam froze, waiting for the sounds of people moving overhead - perhaps angry voices or the thud of the door at the top of the basement steps swinging open. He held his breath until his lungs were burning, waiting for the inevitable dropping of the second shoe, and it wasn't until his head began to swim dizzyingly again that he pushed himself to his feet and forced himself to move.
He wasn't doing himself any good by sitting on the floor feeling sorry for himself.
He stumbled twice in the small distance between the table and the stairs, barely catching himself before he toppled all the way to the floor, and had to stop on the bottom step and rest for a moment when he finally made it there. His stomach had finally decided to wake up; skipping past hunger and straight back into nausea, churning almost audibly. The air around him felt thick and heavy, and the stairs seemed to swim in front of him. When he moved his hands to push himself back to his feet for a third time, he was almost surprised by the way that they trembled underneath him.
He couldn't be sure how long he'd been in the hunters' basement, but it was clear that it was starting to catch up with him. He needed to get out of there as soon as possible - before he was incapable of escape. Before they killed him.
He gave no thought to his dignity as he forced his way up the stairs on his hands and knees; the jagged, stone edges tore his hands and the knees of his jeans, leaving a macabre blood trail in his wake, smeared by the once-white material of his socks. He wondered, absently, where his shoes were. He couldn't remember if he'd been wearing them when he first woke up or not, but now that he'd noticed they weren't there, he found himself feeling oddly naked without them.
What if he stepped on some kind of rusty nail? He couldn't remember if he was due a tetanus shot or not. It would be bitterly ironic to survive this whole ideal and be taken down by some run-of-the-mill illness because his father did a crappy job of keeping up with their vaccines.
Finally, he found himself on the top step, sending himself off-balance when he lifted his hand too high in anticipation of another one, stomach flipping when the limb met air and he tipped forwards. He managed to catch himself against the wall somehow, leaving a grotesque handprint in his own blood for his efforts, and reached up unsteadily to tug on the round knob, dancing in and out of sight above his head. Unsurprisingly, the door was locked, and Sam felt tears prick his eyes when he looked down at his hands and realised that he'd lost his paperclip somewhere.
All of that effort, and he still had no way out.
The realisation sent him slumping back against the wall, adrenaline slowly ebbing from his veins at the realisation that his whole escape plan had just been shot to hell in an instant. He briefly considered going back down the stairs and looking for the paperclip - it had been red and green, he remembered vaguely, stripey in a way that reminded him of Christmas. Surely it couldn't be that hard to find, in a room so dull and drab and grey.
Logic kept him where he was. Even if he did manage to get safely to the bottom of the stairs and find it, there was no way he'd make it back up to the top. His father had trained him to always be aware of his limits, and the young man was keenly aware that he'd long since pushed past them; if he went back downstairs then, he might as well but the collar back on himself and lock it again. No, better to stay where he was and hope that he might at least have the element of surprise-
The doorknob turned.
Sam sucked in a startled breath. God, why hadn't he heard them coming? He was a shifter. He was supposed to have super-human senses, and yet he'd had no idea that there'd been anyone stood outside of the door, and he twisted himself to put his back to the wooden railing, incapable of rising back to his feet.
The door swung open and Sam was greeted with the sight of Cook as he headed inside. The ginger man was laughing at something that Byron had said - the brunette following close behind him - and Sam was moving as soon as he saw the familiar flash of silver in the first man's belt loop. Cook didn't notice him - hell, both of them would probably have walked straight past him if he hadn't lunged for the knife.
The silver burnt his fingers, but when he tugged the belt loop gave way and he flipped the knife in his hand, thrusting it blindly upwards as Cook swung a meaty fist in his direction. The blade hit skin, sunk deeper until it hit something harder - bone, Sam's brain reminded me - and then his body was slumping forwards. Sam had just enough presence of mind to shift out of the way, watching with a somewhat dazed grin as the ginger hunter toppled past him and crashed through the wooden railing. He landed on the basement floor with a sickening thud, dead long before his body made impact, his own blade protruding from his now unmoving heart.
Pride swirled thick and heavy in his gut, even as he registered that he'd just made a mistake. He could have waited them out - let them walk past and then make a dart for the door - but he knew he never would've gotten far. Karl and Marie were unaccounted for, but he was sure that they were somewhere in the house. Instead, he'd done the only thing he could. Defended himself. He'd managed to take one of them out, but in doing so, he'd left himself open to attack.
Byron let out an enraged yell even as his fist struck Sam's cheekbone with unnerving aim, and the shifter felt his body topple sideways. He had just enough time to realise that this was going to hurt badly - perhaps more than anything that had been done to him yet - before his body made impact with the first of the stone stairs, and his world dissolved into agony.
He grinned the whole way down.