Either my muse likes this story a lot or the encouragement I'm getting from your wonderful reviews is really spurring me on! Thank you so much to ToxicTenshi, AlxM, and KToon. I know you want Dean to rescue Sam soon, but, uh... sorry (not sorry). I have most of the story mapped out and it's gonna get worse for Sam before it gets better. And I agree with you, KToon, I don't think there is redemption for Lucifer. He'd have to unravel the multidimensional knot of celestial energy and start over. But it makes him such a great character to write!
Speaking of Luci, I'm actually getting close to finishing the next chapter of Road Trippin' with Lucifer, so stay tuned for that in a week or so!
Tim unlocked the cuffs around his feet and motioned for Sam to move. His sore muscles refused to cooperate and Tim caressed his face with the tip of the prod. "Move faster." Driven by fear, he forced his stiff body to unfold and made it to his feet, sheer willpower keeping him upright. "Inside." His captor directed him forward, the prod kept at the base of his neck. Surveying his surroundings, Sam saw they were at a farmhouse with no other residences in sight. A realtor's sign hanging in the front lawn told him the chance of rescue by accidental discovery was slim. The storm cellar could be locked from the outside which would certainly hinder his escape.
Trudging down into the gaping darkness, everything in him sagged as he saw Lindsey sitting nervously on a crate, her hands cuffed in front of her. Reggie was beside her, leaning against the damp wall. She looked up at their entrance, the fear on her tear-stained face evident and alive. Sam made a step to go towards her but Tim pushed the power button on the prod just for a second and Sam unwillingly halted.
"Uh-uh, this way." Reggie pointed to a large swivel eye hook hanging from the ceiling. Sam's stomach knotted as he made his way there, knowing freedom was slipping away from him. "C'mon, Sam, don't make this difficult. You know what you have to do." A stool was positioned under the hook. Sam's mind raced as he searched for a way out, but the click of a cocked hammer stilled him. Tim had a gun to Lindsey's forehead.
Sam gulped and stepped up, lifting his arms over his head. Pulling up another crate, Reggie opened the swivel of the hook and slipped the chain of Sam's cuffs into the eyelet. The swivel snapped shut and Reggie got down.
Tim circled Sam slowly a few times, well aware he was increasing Sam's anxiety. With a quiet scuffle, he kicked the stool out from under Sam and the young hunter's body plunged down two feet. A thin crunch filled the silence and Sam cried out as his wrists snapped and his shoulders popped out of their sockets. Burning pain ripped down his arms as crushed sensitive tissue wailed its neurochemical distress. "Please," he gasped, unable to say anything more.
A stinging slap to the face answered his plea. "You're not worthy of any mercy. You started the damn Apocalypse. Now. Start from the beginning: how long have you been working for Lucifer?"
Sam shook his head, as much an answer as to give himself time to think through the pain. "I—God, I haven't been working for Lucifer!"
"Bullshit!" Tim exclaimed angrily, backhanding the other side of Sam's face.
"It's not, I swear!"
"Then how do you explain all of this?" The sweeping gesture of his arm implied Sam was responsible for all the evil in the world.
"I, I'll tell you, just, please, let me down! I can't, I can't—"
"Oh, do you want a nice cup of hot cocoa and some cookies?" Tim elbowed Sam in the groin. "Payback. Guess it sucks to be you. Start. Talking."
"What good will it do you? It's all in the past," Sam stated flatly.
"I don't want a justification, freak. I want you to do as you're told! Remember, you're my slave now. Whatever I want, I get. And I want to know how you started the fucking end of the world!" His voice rose to a scream at the end. "Or did you already forget our little arrangement?" Tim drew a knife from his belt and approached Lindsey, tracing the tip of the blade up her arm and onto her collarbone. "You do anything I don't like," he lifted the knife up behind her, "and she dies!" He swung the knife down and Sam shouted and Lindsey tried to curl into herself. Tim laughed as he held up a handful of the hair he had sliced from her head. He let it rain down over the frightened woman.
Bolstered by adrenaline, Sam mustered his strength and did his best to suppress the pain. He didn't want to review his fall from humanity in detail, so he hoped he could get away with the bare minimum. "I—I was cursed as a baby," he explained, gasping for air every few syllables. "A powerful demon infected me with its blood. Somehow that gave me visions that started a few years ago. Turns out this demon was trying to make…" he paused, hating how bad this sounded.
"Keep going," Reggie commanded.
"He was trying to make 'special children' to lead his army of demons. One of those children killed me. Dean made a demon deal to save me, his soul for my life. An angel eventually rescued him from Hell, but while he was gone, I, I…" Shame strangled his voice and he stared down at his heaving chest, for once welcoming the pain searing through his mind. "In my grief and desire for revenge, I was manipulated by a demon who claimed to be helping us. She got me…" He glanced towards Lindsey who was staring at him with a mix of disbelief, fear, and sympathy. "Addicted to demon blood, made me think by using it, that I could help people, turn Azazel's curse into something good. When we found out the seals were being broken by Lilith, I—"
"Hold up, seals?"
"They're, uh, like the locks on Lucifer's cage. 66 had to be broken out of the hundreds possible."
"Why now all of a sudden?" Reggie asked.
"Because the first and last seals were very specific and had to occur in order."
"So which seals did you break?" Tim queried, his eyes alight with malicious curiosity.
"I only broke the—" Sam stopped abruptly. If he shared that Dean broke the first one, maybe these psychos would go after him, too. He couldn't let that happen. "I only broke the first and the last ones."
Tim's fists clenched. "And, pray tell, how did you manage that treasonous feat?"
Fuck. Time to sell it. "I didn't know it at the time, I swear, but the first time I exorcised a demon when I was powered up by blood. That was the first seal. The last seal was killing Lilith. I thought killing Lilith would stop the seals breaking, but she was the last seal. I didn't know. They tricked me. Don't you see I was trying to stop all of this?! Dean and I actually saved a number of seals, but the angels were working against us! They want the Apocalypse!"
Tim shrugged. "They can want it all they want but it was you and your mistakes that landed us here! What, are you so pathetic you can't make it without your brother? Dean's gone and you dive headfirst into evil?" He eyed Sam hatefully. "Dean made it without you for years while you were at Stanford, being all high and mighty. What, the huntin' life not good enough for you, hot shot? Think saving peoples' lives isn't worth your precious time?" He spat on Sam, his anger starting to boil over. "Or did you already know what a freak you were even back then? I bet you've always known it. Fucking disgusting mutant. Shit, Dean must be so ashamed of you." Sam closed his eyes and tried to stop the tears threatening to leak in. "He's a far better hunter than you'll ever be. I mean, you just slowed him down while you were a kid."
"Almost got him killed a few times, too, if I remember," Reggie added.
"Yeah, I think you're right. Still, he and John did their best and then you run off like the ungrateful piece of shit I knew you'd turn out to be. John shoulda gotten rid of you when he had the chance!"
Dean's voice blared in his mind. 'He said that I might have to kill you, Sammy.' 'Dad always said I'd either have to save you or kill you. Well, I'm giving you fair warning. I'm done trying to save you.'
Out of nowhere, the rigid force of a splintered wooden plank slammed into Sam's stomach and he cried out, bringing a smile to Tim's face. Long slivers of wood pierced his skin and implanted themselves in Sam's abdomen. "You are fucking scum!" Tim shouted, swinging the plank again, driving the fragments in even deeper. Sam gasped in agony, his body unable to bring in enough air. "You are worse than anything I've ever hunted! You were supposed to be on our side, you goddam traitor! You've doomed us all!"
Discarding the wood for a crowbar, he began to wail on Sam's writhing body mercilessly, all the while screaming. "My best friend is dead because of you! I should be burning your body instead of his, but no! You. Won't. Fucking. Die!" A solid blow landed on the iliac crest of Sam's left hip and he only had a moment to appreciate the reality-altering pain that was a shattered hip before he passed out.
Misery crept around the edges of his consciousness, preventing his return to oblivion. Awareness dropped him ten thousand feet onto a plain of serrated knives and everything hurt. The only thing he could move was his neck. He struggled to lift his head and was rewarded with Lindsey's horrified gaze. Her eyes were red. She'd definitely been crying.
Guilt surmounted his aching body and he forced himself to speak. "Lindsey, I'm so, so sorry. If I had known any of this would have happened, I never woulda stepped foot in the bar. I know I can never make it up to you, just know that it's killing me what they're doing to you."
Her eyes got wide and she let out a slightly hysterical laugh. "What they're doing to me?" She rattled her cuffs. "This is the worst they're doing to me. Sam, what they're doing to you… I…" She shook her head, words unable to express her frantic emotions.
Sam looked away. "I… I deserve it…" he said quietly.
"I don't know that I believe whatever the hell you guys were talking about, but, Apocalypse or not, no one deserves to be hung by their wrists and beaten. On top of that, it sounds like you thought you were doing the right thing."
"Guess it's true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions," Sam scoffed.
Lindsey sighed and an unsteady silence hung between them for a few minutes. Sam tried to concentrate on an escape plan but the torment plaguing his body robbed him of all focus.
"How long had you known about your… powers?" Lindsey asked quietly.
Sam looked up and into Lindsey's eyes, but found her expression unreadable.
"A few years ago… I was at Stanford, studying to become a lawyer," he began.
"That explains a lot," she commented seriously.
He huffed out a weak laugh. "I liked it but clearly it wasn't meant to be. I had a nightmare that my girlfriend died, but I thought it was just a nightmare. See, when Azazel — the demon who cursed me – came into my room as a baby, my mom tried to stop him. He killed her by cutting her stomach open, pinning her to the ceiling, then setting the house on fire." Lindsey's mouth dropped open in shock. "I know, it's horrible, but I obviously don't remember it. Anyway, that's how I dreamed Jess died, so I thought it was my brain just messing with me." He paused, tears successfully breaking free now. "But it wasn't," he said in a strangled whisper. "It was my first vision. I went away with Dean for a weekend and when I came back, her blood dripped onto my — she… she was on the ceiling…" he gasped, sobs convulsing his body, enhancing his suffering even more.
"I'm sorry. That sounds so awful. No one should have to go through that," she murmured comfortingly.
Sam sniffled and tried to compose himself. "I should have – I should have known to never go near people again. Everyone I get close to dies. I'm sorry, Lindsey. I'll get you out of here, I promise." He looked over at her, earnestly conveying his last wish.
She smiled sweetly and stood up. "It's okay, Sam, I believe you." She pushed the crate over to him with her feet and clambered up. On the crate, she was eye level with him. "Though really, you should be much more concerned about getting yourself out," she whispered in his ear.
His brows furrowed. "What? What do you—" He turned to look at her, and as she smiled, the grey of her eyes rolled back to reveal hazy white.
Fear petrified Sam. "You-you're dead. I killed you! How are you here?!"
The woman in front of him flopped her blonde hair over her shoulder and grinned. "Like Lucifer would make me miss out on all the fun!" A pair of pliers booped his nose. "Open up, tough guy, I want to hear lots of screaming!" Grasping his tongue with the cool metal, Lilith wasted no time in getting her revenge.
Another irritating zap of electricity dragged him back to wakefulness. Simmering beneath the acute pain of his injuries, a frantic pressure was needling along his nerves. He knew exactly what that was. Withdrawal. Fuck! He couldn't do this again! He couldn't do any of this. He wanted to die. Except he couldn't. Fuck you, Lucifer! he shouted internally. A more powerful shock tempered his anger and made him focus his attention externally.
"Open your eyes, bitch! Show me you're awake!" a harsh voice snarled.
After a few moments of blinking against bright light, Tim's blurry figure resolved in Sam's vision. The gleeful look on Tim's face warned Sam of some impending misfortune. Tim sidled up to the right side of Sam's body and wrapped his arm around, forcefully patting Sam's obliterated hip. The whimpers only made him grin wider.
"Alright, Sammy. It's time to see just how much damage Lucifer can repair. Hope you don't mind being used as monster bait!"
Reviews are love! And they'll help save Sam quicker ;)
