Lupo Mutaret (19)
nineteen
Donovan wasn’t talking.
He’d admitted that something had happened with Sam, something bad, but hadn’t given any more detail and had fallen quiet just moments later despite Dean’s somewhat hostile demands for more information. When the shifter had snapped that the faster Dean shut up, the faster he could concentrate and track Sammy down, the hunter had reluctantly been forced to concede.
He’d reluctantly perched himself on the edge of his motel bed, dragging the weapons duffel closer and mechanically set about stripping and cleaning the guns. If they were going to walk straight into a trap - and there was no doubt in Dean’s mind that they were - they were at least going to do it prepared. Apparently understanding the silent logic, John had settled himself opposite his oldest son and began stripping his own handgun.
The silence was deafening, and when Donovan finally broke it, Dean couldn’t help but jump.
“Here.” The shifter announced suddenly, jabbing a finger in a small space between two of the immaculately drawn ‘x’s even as his other hand reached up to rub irritably at his temple. “He has to be around here somewhere.”
Dean rose to his feet, crossing the room in a few hurried strides and scowled when he noticed just how wide the circle that Donovan was pointing to was.
“That’s like a ten mile radius in each direction.”
Donovan had the decency to look at least a little bit remorseful. “He’s in too much pain - I can’t make things out clearly. I should be able to make better sense of where he is when we get a little bit closer… but until then, this is the best I can do.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Bobby demanded incredulously. “That we just hop in the car and drive until you hit the psychic jackpot?”
Donovan shrugged. “That’s the best that I’ve got.”
**
Sam regretted waking the moment that he did it.
His body felt eerily disconnected, heavy and motionless, attached to his brain just well enough for him to feel a dull approximation of the pain that his body was being subjected to. He could vaguely recall a sensation of weightlessness, but it was a few moments before his brain pieced everything together well enough for him to realise that he’d been thrown down the stairs.
Despite everything, he couldn’t help but crack a small smile at the thought of Cook tumbling off the edge of the stairwell to his demise. Or at least he thought it did - it was hard to tell if he was smiling with his eyes shut, and his lids were too heavy to prise open. In the darkness, he was distantly aware of the trails of moisture drying on his cheeks - noticeable only by the fact that the skin there was colder - and he wondered if he was crying because everything hurt or whether it was some kind of silver reaction catching up to him.
He’d tell Dean it was the silver.
Dean.
Where was Dean? Had he fallen, like Sam? Was he lying on the cold concrete next to his brother, body just as battered and bruised as Sam’s? Or was he safe? Tucked up in the Impala or a motel room somewhere, a rerun of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid playing to itself in the background whilst Dean fretted over his brother’s absence?
It was the thought of his brother that had Sam’s eyes finally blinking open. It took a while for his brain to catch up with his eyes and realise that they were open, and Sam felt cold panic grip the base of his throat at the thought of being blind and never knowing whether he was alone or whether his brother was lying still and unbreathing just a few feet over and Sam was just oblivious to his presence. Eventually, the world started to take shape above him.
He saw the stairs, first. Fuzzy and unfocused, but easily recognisable from the smears of blood that lined their surface and it took the young shifter to realise that the strange red line splitting them down the middle was more of the sticky substance dripping into his eye. He twitched a hand towards his face, intended to wipe the blood away, and instead the world whited out for a long moment as agony shot through his arm.
By the time that he realised he could see the stairs again, he was shivering once more, injured arm somehow clutched to his chest. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was broken - Sam had broken enough bones in his lifetime to know what one felt like, and he resolved to move his body as little as possible for fear of finding another.
The stairs were dancing, swaying slightly as if caught in a strong gust of wind, and watching them move was leaving Sam feeling more than a little nauseous.
“D’n.”
He blinked a little, startled at the noise and even more so to realise that it was his voice. Had he wanted to call for his brother? He couldn’t remember. He remembered a cattle prod now, though, and he knew from the memory of the pain that it had inflicted that his brother wasn’t here. Dean would have found some way to save him by now if he had… which meant that Sam was on his own.
He was screwed.
The realisation only served to crank his nausea up to the next level, and just when Sam thought his situation couldn’t get any worse, he began to gag. His chest constricted painfully, and he could have sworn he felt his ribs give under the pressure, pain beginning to ramp up to new levels and he was sick and dizzy and the blackness was creeping in again and Sam realised for the first time that he was scared - more scared than he’d ever been in his life, because this time there was nobody coming to save him. No Dean or Dad to fall back on.
If he was going to survive, he was going to have to save himself.
But first, he was just going to rest his eyes for a moment…
**
“Anything?” Dean demanded, twisting further in the Impala’s passenger seat to peer at the shifter perched on the worn leather of the rear bench.
The scowl that crossed Donovan’s face was perhaps the darkest yet, and the noise that rumbled out of his chest sounded suspiciously like a growl. John glared at him accusingly in the rear-view mirror, but if the shifter was affected by the stare he certainly didn’t show it.
“Demanding my attention every few seconds isn’t exactly conducive to me concentrating on your brother, is it, Dean?” He asked patronisingly. “How am I supposed to pick up on what he’s thinking if I can’t hear him for your frustratingly persistent voice?”
Dean’s face darkened, his voice emitting in a low growl of his own. “Don’t push your luck. If I had my way, you’d already have a bullet between your eyes. Right now, Sam’s the only thing keeping you alive. Believe me when I say that finding him is in your best interests.”
John sighed, just narrowly resisting the urge to smack his face off the steering wheel even as his eyes flitted to the mirror between him and his eldest son to check that Jim’s truck was still behind them. “Both of you shut up. Donovan, concentrate. Dean, leave the shifter alone.”
Like two young children, Dean and Donovan both crossed their arms and scowled to themselves. Quite honestly, John was past the point of caring. Already, Sam had been missing for far too long - especially considering who was currently holding him captive - and driving at twenty miles under the speed limit on the off-chance that a shifter he’d wanted dead picked up on anything was grating on his last nerve. He could understand his son’s frustration, but there was no denying that right now, they needed Donovan more than he needed them.
“Right here.” The shifter barked suddenly, hand shooting out to smack into the back of John’s seat. The hunter swore, slamming the Impala’s breaks on and swinging her long body around to manoeuvre along a road they’d been almost half-way past. The thick hedging on either side of the dirt track allowed for merely inches on either side, or even John was surprised that he’d managed to make the turn without damaging the car significantly.
Then again, he had more important things to worry about. “You can feel him? Are we close?”
“Shut up!” Donovan snarled, and John felt himself bristle, retort on the tip of his tongue. A glance at the man’s hunched form kept the words in check; the shifter’s eyes were lined with pain, and he had a hand pressed to his temple. “Shit. Yeah, he’s definitely this way. We’re getting closer.”
John caught the movement of his oldest son’s hand dropping to his gun out of the corner of his eye, and he felt the traces of a dark smile begin to curl at the edges of his mouth.
They were nearly there… and when they got there, the people that had taken John Winchester’s baby boy would regret the very day that they were born. He’d make sure of that.
**
It was the sensation of a wet nose pressed against his cheek that roused Sam the second time. The hunter drifted for a long moment, torn between unconsciousness and alertness, and it was the faint snuffling against damp skin that had his eyelids slowly peeling back.
At first, Sam couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing - it was nonsensical splashes of black against white, the faint glimpse of a red leather collar that was eerily similar to the one he’d been wearing when Marie and her cohorts had picked him up. He wondered where that had gone. He might not have been a dog, but there had been something strangely reassuring about the sensation of cool leather against the vulnerable skin of his neck - a concrete reminder that there would always be someone there to watch his back.
It seemed almost ironic that they’d taken it from him.
The strange image shifted, and Sam realised finally that he was looking at the Dalmatian. He’d somehow made it onto his side at some point, and the dog was lying against his chest, face nuzzling gently against Sam’s own.
“I was worried you’d choke when you started being sick,” A voice commented from somewhere near him. “So I rolled you onto your side. If you had a spinal injury, I probably made it worse.”
Sam blinked idly, and it was what felt like forever before he could force his eyes to leave the dog’s face and wander lazily upwards. He wasn’t surprised to see Karl there, eyes dark with something akin to an apology. He was wringing his hands nervously, and Sam could just make out the faint splatters of blood on his shirt and the ring of bruises around one of his wrists.
“Not that it matters much.” He continued in that same deadpan voice. “You’ve pissed mom and dad off now. They don’t even care about your pack anymore… They’ve gone out back to dig some graves, but they said they’d be back for you afterwards.”
Sam blinked at him, surprised when he realised that there was tears in the man’s eyes. Karl dropped his head. “Why’d you have to make them mad? They might have let you go if you’d behaved…”
The tone of his voice made it clear that he didn’t really believe that, and Sam’s brain slowly started to comprehend the information that the man was giving him. This wasn’t some random hunter that had been pulled in off the streets, like Cook or the others - he was Marie and Byron’s son. He hadn’t chosen to be here anymore than Sam had.
“Th’nks.” The shifter forced out, panting audibly. “Would’ve died if you hadn’t roll’d me.”
Karl shook his head, sniffing miserably. “You’re gonna die anyway. Maybe I should’ve just put you out of your misery while I had the chance. One clean bullet to the brain. You wouldn’t even know you were dead.”
For a moment, Sam entertained that idea.
“Could let me go.” He forced himself to suggest after a long moment. He knew his brother would never forgive him if he just rolled over and gave in. When he saw the reluctance on Karl’s face he groaned, forcing himself to bring up a hand and tangle his fingers in the Dalmatian’s fur. The dog’s tail thumped twice against his leg.
“He likes you.” Karl commented idly, running a shaking hand through his hair. “Do dogs like shifters? I never thought they would.”
Sam coughed weakly, frowning when he saw the faintest trace of blood fly out and speckle the dog’s fur. “Wouldn’t know.”
Karl groaned loudly, fingers tangling in his own hair and tugging harshly.
“What do I do?” He demanded. “They’re my parents! Wouldn’t you stand by your parents?”
“Not if they were killing innocent people.”
Karl scowled. “And how am I supposed do know that you’re innocent? Shifters lie! I’m not an idiot! Of course you’re gonna try and convince me to let you go… innocent or not!”
“You see a collar on me?” Sam panted. “You think… if I could shift… I’d still be here?”
Karl swore loudly, surging to his feet and turning his back without another word, the sound of a door slamming shut marking his retreat from the basement. Sam flinched a little, head spinning dizzily in reaction to the pain that radiated through him at the move, and it was then that he caught sight of something that threatened to have a grin break across his face.
Angry and frustrated though Marie and Byron were, there was clearly no love lost between the two of them and Cook. If there had been, they probably would have moved the body - perhaps given him a hunter’s funeral, or buried him somewhere.
They certainly would have removed the knife sticking out of his chest.