A/N: Oh man, this chapter was like pulling teeth... and I'm still not happy with it, so review and let me know what you think! Also, this is my last post as a thirteen-year-old, which is kind of cool. Okay, so it's not that cool. Whatever, just enjoy the chapter! :)
Son of a bitch.
They were trapped. Again. Even knowing what was coming, even knowing how to beat the demon, they had been caught unaware. God freaking dammit. Dean fisted a hand in the back of Sam's shirt, pulling his brother towards him. The demon wasn't getting him this time.
John had already whipped his gun out and was holding it steadily, pointed at the demon's head. It wouldn't do any good, but it gave a small measure of security. "What do you want?" demanded John, his voice hard as rocks and just as steady. Dean wished he had that kind of resolve. He still hadn't managed to crush the initial terror that came from seeing the demon that had killed his mother and kidnapped his brother.
"Me?" The demon spread his arms out, eyebrows raised. "What makes you think I want anything?"
"Cut the crap," Dean ground out. John threw him a warning glance and he fell silent, glaring at the demon. He glanced down at Sam. His brother was staring at the demon with a mixture of horror and hatred, and Dean tightened his grip. No way. Nothing was getting Sam.
"Well, since you offered..." The demon grinned at them and stepped a fraction closer. Sam edged impossibly closer to Dean. "We had a good time together, didn't we, Sammy?" He leered unpleasantly at Sam, and Dean resisted the urge to growl at him, hating the way they were frozen, unable to move for fear that the demon would attack.
God-dammit.
"We could go back to that, Sammy," said the demon. "You were making such good progress. What do ya say?"
Sam glared at him. "Screw you." Dean smirked a little, even under the circumstances. That's my boy, Sammy.
"It's a shame you feel like that, Sammy-boy. I mean, you don't really get much choice in the matter." He grinned at them, eerily playful, and stepped towards Sam until they were just inches apart.
"Don't you touch him, you sonuvabitch," Dean snarled as he felt Sam's breathing hitch. Sam was scared, he knew, and that just made him more mad because no one got to make his brother feel like that.
The demon flung his hand out without warning and Dean was forced away from Sam by some invisible force until he was pressed awkwardly up against the Impala. "I'll do what I like, Deano," said the demon lightly, though there was iron in his yellow eyes. "It's not like you've got the means to stop me, is it? And I even gave you a head start."
"What do you want?" repeated John forcefully, and only Dean saw the way the gun in his father's hand shook slightly, saw the clench in his jaw and the hint of panic in his eyes.
The demon turned his head to look at John. "I want Sam," he said easily. "I'd prefer to keep him and kill you, of course, but it's all a matter of leverage, so I'm gonna need you all to come with me." The shit-eating grin was back and Dean, held motionless, could do nothing but glare.
"Why?" Sam asked, and wasn't that a loaded freaking question, but the demon just looked at him and then at Dean and suddenly he was moving so fast that none of them could react and Dean felt his head hit something hard and then there was nothing but the darkness.
Sam cried out as the demon grabbed Dean's head and slammed it into the Impala, effectively knocking him out, and before either him or John could react, the demon was in front of John. He flicked his hand, sending the gun flying from John's grasp and into his, before slamming the gun against John's temple. Watching in horror as his dad fell to the floor, Sam tried to back away, to move, to do something, but found himself rooted to the spot.
"And now we come to Sammy," the demon said softly, tucking John's gun into his belt. Sam made a mental note of it and wondered if he could get to it before the demon reacted. It wouldn't help, though, would it? There was nothing he could do without the Colt. "You gonna come willingly, Sammy-boy, or have I gotta hurt young Dean over here?"
"Don't touch him!" The words ripped themselves from his throat and Sam swallowed down the panic he felt well at the thought of Dean being hurt. "Don't touch him," he repeated, more softly
"That's not an answer, Sammy." The demon raised a hand threateningly in Dean's direction and Sam stepped forward, thinking wildly that there was nothing he could do, nothing, and Dean was going to get hurt but he couldn't just go with the demon and-
-and the demon was about to hurt Dean and Sam knew what that kind of pain felt like, knew what the demon was capable of and suddenly he found himself blurting, "I'll come with you!"
The demon paused and turned to look at Sam with interest. "Just... don't hurt them." There was no question of who he meant.
"Excellent choice," the demon declared. Then he stepped towards Sam, closing the distance between them, and placed his hand across Sam's forward. There was a roaring noise in Sam's ears as his feet were ripped from the ground and they went spiralling upwards in a torrent of black smoke and he screwed his eyes shut, terrified. Within seconds, they were back on the ground, but not in the same place they had been before, and not with Dean and John.
They were in some kind of office building, that much was obvious, but it seemed to have been abandoned. Sam and the demon stood in the reception, where there was a large desk stretching from one wall to the one opposite it, a door behind the desk. The demon wrapped an arm around Sam's shoulders and Sam had to fight not to push him away as the demon steered him into an elevator. The doors slid shut behind them and the demon pressed a button that would take them to the basement.
Sam glanced around the at the silver walls, wondering why the demon hadn't teleported them straight to the basement and, more importantly, where the hell his family was.
"Don't worry about your family, Sammy-boy," said the demon, as if reading his mind. "They'll be along soon enough, my pals are gonna see to that." Sam swallowed, trying not to think about what that meant. "In the meantime, you and I need to have a little conversation."
"Yeah?" Sam challenged, trying to disguise the quiver in his voice. "About what?"
The demon laughed. "Still got that fight in you, huh? That's good."
"About what?" repeated Sam through gritted teeth.
"You," said the demon. "You're dispensable, Sammy, much as I hate to admit it. I'd rather not kill you, but if I have to..." he trailed off and shrugged. "Just a little warning."
A heavy weight settled in the pit of Sam's stomach. Dispensable. He could be killed. Why hadn't the demon done it before now? Sam had exorcised him, surely that warranted his death. "I thought you needed me," he said instead, trying to keep his voice level as the panic inside him warred with anger. "That's why you trained me to use those sick powers, isn't it?"
"That's true, I guess," the demon agreed casually. "But y'know, Sammy, you're not the only kid I could use."
That made him stop short. Sam stood frozen as the elevator lurched to a halt and the doors slid open. Not the only kid? Would the demon actually use someone else, feed someone else his blood and force them to use the powers it gave them? For an instant, Sam wondered if it would be better that way. He instantly regretted the thought, hating himself for wishing that kind of pain on someone else.
The demon watched him with an amused smile, like he knew what was going on in Sam's head – which, Sam realised, he probably did.
"Why me, then?" he asked at last. The demon chuckled, wrapped an arm around his shoulders again and headed off down the corridor.
"Because you're strong, Sammy. I need a soldier, y'know, and all that training your daddy put ya through made you pretty tough."
Sam blinked at him, too wrapped up in his thoughts to protest at the arm around his shoulders. "A soldier?"
"Hell's army, Sammy-boy. It's gonna be big." The demon paused at a plain white door. He pulled it open and pushed Sam inside, making him stumble. "Now, stay put, Sammy. The grown-ups have some work to get done." With a feral grin, the demon slammed the door behind him and Sam heard a lock click. There was no door handle on this side, no way to get the door open, and there were no windows either. The room was just empty, with white walls and a hard, white floor.
Great. Once again, he was absolutely screwed.
When John came round, he was handcuffed to a pipe and locked inside a cage, Dean beside him in an identical position but still unconscious. His temple throbbed persistently, but the pain in his head was nothing compared to the panic that hit him when he realised Sam wasn't here. Dean was there, right beside him, but Sam wasn't.
Instantly he started to twist around, attempting to detach himself from the pipe (and, by extension, the wall). The clanking of the metal must have woken Dean up because the next thing he knew, John heard Dean's voice.
"Dad?"
John stopped trying to break free and turned to look at his son. "Dean," he said. "Dean, are you hurt?"
Jaw clenched, Dean shook his head. "What happened? Where's Sam?"
Dean sure had his priorities in order. "I dunno," John admitted. "I guess the demon knocked us out and locked us in here. There's no sign of Sam, though."
"Shit," muttered Dean, and John nodded his agreement. That pretty much covered it. "What do we do?"
John glanced at Dean, saw the fierce determination on his son's face and knew that if Sam had been hurt, there was going to be hell to pay. John would make sure of that, if Dean didn't get there first. "First, we break out of here. Then we find Sam. Check your pockets, see if you've got anything we can use to pick a lock." Following his own orders, John used his free hand to check his pockets. His jacket was gone, presumably taken along with his gun and the flask of holy water he kept tucked inside it.
His pockets were full of dust and loose change. Frustrated, John looked out around the cage. It was short, with a low ceiling that forced them to stay seated and about twelve feet across. The doors were held together with a huge, chunky chain, locked with a heavy padlock. Outside the cage, the room was plain and white, empty of any furniture with a door that also looked to be locked.
"Anything?" he asked Dean after a moment. Dean shook his head, obviously as frustrated as John.
"Dammit!" Dean shouted after a moment, pulling furiously at the handcuffs. "What the hell's going on?" he demanded. "What, they're just gonna leave us down here?"
John sighed, pulled again at the handcuffs. There was no give and the pipes looked firmly stuck to the wall. He couldn't even rip the pipes off to get himself free. "I guess. They'll come down soon enough," he said, hoping he was right. "Demons love to gloat." If there were even any more demons, that was. It could just be the demon, and the thought made John's blood boil, the idea that they had been beaten by this one freaking demon...
No. Not beaten. They weren't done. They were gonna get out of here and then they would find Sam and kick some demon ass. They weren't Winchesters for nothing.
"You'd better be right about this," muttered Dean, but he didn't stop pulling at the handcuffs. His wrist looked red already from the force he'd exerted. John gritted his teeth and fell silent, waiting. He had to be right. Once someone came in here, they'd make their move and attack. In another situation, John would say they had to bide their time and wait till they knew what was going on, but not now. Not while Sam was in danger.
No. They would wait for someone, anyone to enter and then they would kick some serious ass. They weren't gonna go down without one hell of a fight.