Sam woke up to someone driving a screwdriver through his brain. At the very least that's what it felt like. His shoulders ached, and when he tugged at his hands he found them tied behind his back. As he came slowly into consciousness, he blinked at the bright light shining in his eyes. Looking around in confusion as the light dimmed, his eyes slowly came to rest on two black orbs staring at him. Demons. Of course this would happen to Sam. The one time he had told Dean that he could handle being on his own for a few hours, and he gets kidnapped. But Sam couldn't think about that at the moment, he had to find a way out of his unfortunate situation.
Sam looked past the bright light and tried to focus on the demon holding him captive.
He sensed that there were more of the creatures hidden beyond his sight, but the one that was right in front of him was a tall dark-haired boy of about fifteen. He would have been fairly handsome if it weren't for the black eyes dominating the center of his face.
Oh, this was bad. This was very, very bad. How long had he been missing? An hour, two hours, a day? Dean would be panicking. Oh god, he was going to be in so much trouble.
Of course he couldn't really get in trouble if he was dead.
Trying to get his bearings, he saw a small window a few feet off the ground. If he could only get away from the demons holding him captive long enough to make it to the window, then he could escape.
He gave another tug at the ropes, trying to gauge how tight they were. Unfortunately, this got the demon's attention. It's slightly vacant and bored eyes snapping into focus when it saw that he had moved. It's hand whipped out and latched around his wrist, long nails digging into his arm.
"Well, well. Look who's awake. Took you long enough." the demon said. "I think it's time we introduce our guest to his hosts."
A knife grazed his chin as his head was forced up to meet the demon's eyes.
"Family, meet Sam Winchester." He pulled his head up further and a drop of blood rolled down his neck where his blade had pierced Sam's skin. He winced but tried not to drop eye contact. "Sam Winchester, meet family."
Now that he looked more carefully he could see that the demon was not alone. There were others lurking in the shadows. As he watched they stepped out into the small ray of light that illuminated the room.
There were three of them, the oldest was a tall, lean, dark haired man with streaks of gray running through his hair. His old and slightly worn suit made him look like an office worker, or perhaps a teacher. In contrast, the second was a woman, relatively young and rather pretty in a quiet bookish way. She was in her late thirties, Sam estimated, and had a pair of glasses still perched on her forehead, though one of the lenses was shattered.
The third was the most disturbing. A little girl was standing in the corner, her dark ragged bangs covering a childish yet worn face. A small and demonic giggle came from her throat, sending a chill down Sam's spine. Sam shivered. The child couldn't be more than eight. Her parents would be looking for her. He tried to remember the exorcism that dad had taught him only last week. The words were on the tip of his tongue, and he opened his mouth to unleash them on the family when a fist slammed into his teeth.
A trickle of blood slipped through his lips and he spat it on to the ground, then brought his eyes up to look in to the demon's again. It grinned. "There'll be none of that now," the little girl said from the corner.
The woman smiled, dipping her head in a nod, "Sit still my boy, there's a score to be settled."
Dean pushed open the hotel room door. His date had ended nearly a half hour ago, the girl had classes in the morning, but he'd decided to stop and get burgers for Sammy on the way home.
He plunked the bag down on the top of the mini-fridge, and noticing that Sam wasn't in the room, walked over to the spot where they had agreed he would leave a note if he had decided to go out.
There was no note.
He checked the floor, then the rest of the room. He knocked on the bathroom door, and then having verified that the room was empty of both a note and his brother, grabbed his key and ran down to the lobby. As he had expected, Sam wasn't there either.
Dean, not thinking for a moment, whipped out his cell phone and called the third person on his speed dial. Bobby picked up after just a few rings, and was greeted by a frantic 17 year old boy.
"Bobby?"
"Dean? What is it, boy?"
"It's Sam, Bobby. Sam's gone."
"Gone? What d'ya mean, gone?"
"I mean he's missing. No note, no nothing. Just gone."
"Calm down."
"Calm down? How can I calm down when my little brother is missing? What if something happened to him? What if someone took him? What if-? No, he can't be dead, Bobby, he can't. And what if-"
"Well first off, you're not gonna be able to help him if you sit here worrying, you idjit."
Dean took a deep breath and said, "I'm sorry, Bobby."
"That's alright, son. Now, when was the last time you saw your brother?"
"Uhh, maybe right before I left. Which was a few hours ago."
"He couldn't have gone that far then. Just calm down. Were you boys hunting anything?"
"No… No. I hit my head pretty bad on the last job, and dad left me and Sam in the hospital. He was going to come back and get us when the hunt was over"
"And what was your daddy hunting?"
"A wendigo, a couple states over"
"Alright, so you know it's not that that's got Sam, presuming anythings got him. Are you sure your brother didn't just wander off?"
"Of course he didn't just wander off!"
"Calm down, Dean! It's not like the kid hasn't done it before"
"I know, ok. But it's different this time. There was no reason for him to… And he would have left a note!"
"Alright boy, I believe you. Just sit tight in case Sam comes back, if you want to drive around looking for him you can do that too. I'll be there in a couple of hours. You called your daddy yet?"
Dean shook his head miserably. "No, he said he'd be out of range all week, he left his cellphone with me."
"Fine, I'll be there soon and we'll figure this out. Just calm down Dean, I'm sure Sam's fine."
How long had it been since he first woke up? An hour? Six? He wasn't sure, and he was having trouble keeping track of time. He hurt all over, and was having trouble keeping himself calm. It wasn't the severity of the injuries that was worrying him, he'd been hurt much worse in the past. What he had now hurt, a lot, but it wasn't even enough to put him in the hospital, or at least not for very long. He was pretty sure his wrist was broken, the woman had snapped it when he'd tried to escape and it was throbbing terribly. The little girl had gone at him with a knife before the brother had pulled her back, and there was a gash up his cheek. It had stopped bleeding a while ago but it still hurt like hell. They'd all taken their turns beating on him a bit, but it hadn't been too severe, he'd received worse beatings from school yard beatings. He got the instinctive feeling that they were saving the real pain for later on. That was what worried him.
He heard talking behind him and lifted his gaze from the ground to examine what the family was doing. The boy, who Sam had taken to thinking of as the brother was talking to the two adults. Sam leaned forward to catch the conversation.
"You've got the phone number?" he asked
The woman nodded. "Yes, tortured it out of the last person he saved." Sam winced, not exactly sure they were talking about, but upset at the confirmation of what was soon to happen to him.
The man reached around and took a cell phone from the woman's hand. From there she strode over to Sam, the rest of her family hanging back. She bent down next to him, and he caught the disturbing scent of blood on her breath. "Sweetie?" she asked, and her voice made his skin crawl. He looked back on the ground, thinking that acknowledging her would only bring more trouble for him.
He felt a hand sharp across his cheek and glanced up. "You'll pay attention to me when I talk to you," she hummed. "Now we're going to make a call to your daddy, how's that sound?"
They were going to call dad? No that couldn't be right. He was in New Jersey hunting that Wendigo, his phone was with . . . No. Oh no. He opened his mouth to tell the woman she was wrong, but the hand came back across his face and he was stunned into silence.
She keyed in his fathers number, and pressed call.
Dean picked up the phone and pressed it to his ear. "Hello? Sam?"
"Hello, John," the soft and vaguely threatening voice replied from the other end.
Dean shook his head, "No this is-" but the voice interrupted him.
"You remember me, John?" Dean tried to speak again but the voice continued over him. "We have a bit of a score left unsettled if my memory's correct."
"Listen, lady. I don't know who you are, but I've got bigger problems, so-"
"Like Sam?"
That shut Dean up, he gulped. "What?"
"Sam, your son. I believe he's missing? Well I think I might have found him."
Dean's next words were cold and frightening. "Where is he?"
"Right here, you want to say hi?"
Dean's eyes widened. "S-Sammy?"
"Dean?" a small voice came from the other line of the phone.
"Sam! Sam, it's ok! I'm going to come get you. Tell me where you are?"
"I'm . . . I'm in a basement, somewhere near-" Sam's voice was abruptly cut off as the phone was yanked from his hand.
"That's none of your business, now is it?"
"What have you done to my brother?" Dean asked tightly.
"Oh nothing . . . yet. But don't worry. That'll soon change."
"Let me talk to him again!" Dean practically shouted in to the phone, desperate to talk to Sammy, desperate to offer him some kind of comfort.
There was a soft laugh on the other end, and as the voice hissed "Well, if you insist . . ." Dean realized he had just made a terrible mistake.
He had just enough time to shout "No" into the phone, before there was the scratching sound of the receiver being moved through the air, and then the most bone-curdling scream Dean had heard in his life came echoing through the speaker.