Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.

Warnings: Torture and language.

Important Note: I've raised the rating to M due to dark themes and events.


True to their words, Sam was awoken at sunrise. His shoulders still ached, but the restraints on his wrists were removed. He would have been useless with them on, but no matter the reason, he took what he could get.

The morning started with a cold shower in a shower pit. The only thing that dulled the humiliation was that he wasn't the only one there, and the water felt like it washed off at least a little bit of the grime that accumulated during the time since he'd been taken.

After the shower, they were herded to a cafeteria (using the term loosely) where he received a bowl of rice porridge with eggs and a cup of tea. It was a bland breakfast, but warm, better than a protein shake, and it filled his stomach. He almost fooled himself into thinking this might not be so bad, but they needed him alive and that meant getting food into him. Enough that he could live off of in the long term.

Not knowing what his job would be left him a bit anxious. He gathered that he was at some sort of textile factory, but the machines were archaic in a way that it seemed like Davies not upgrading them was his way of asking for accidents. From the bloodstains he saw on the floor around the machines, it seemed accidents were regular occurrences.

Sam was assigned to packing and moving the finished products (be it yarn, cloth, or clothing), moving the raw materials from one place to another, and helping with cleaning at the end of the day. It probably could have been worse, he thought, but he learned that his tasks had him exhausted quickly. The crates he was forced to move were large and heavy. There were too many of them and too few slaves to carry them.

He understood why Davies saw value in him. Most of the other kids were too young or in too poor of a shape to move anything half the weight of the crates.

The bonus was that it allowed him movement around the factory. He may have always been watched by the task masters, but they couldn't stop him from inspecting the place as he completed his tasks.

The hard part was seeing the emptiness on the faces of the other children there. The quiet despair as they worked without hope of escaping the horrible loop of routine their lives had become.

Sam wondered if his own eyes looked that empty. That hopeless.

He packed finished clothes into crates. While he worked with packing, he could watch some of the other kids work at the nearby machines, and Sam realized another reason why he hadn't been put on that duty: they were all smaller than him. When there was a jam, they could fit through the crevices to fix it.

But for some of the machines, if they fixed it and couldn't make it out in time… Sam prayed he would never have to witness that.

It was a habit of his that left his father frustrated on more than one occasion, and one he never realized he did until snapped out of it. He got lost in his thoughts.

It wasn't something he could control. It just happened.

However, he usually wasn't pulled from his thoughts by being thrown to the ground. In his surprise, he looked up to meet the furious eyes of one of the task masters.

One of his steel toe boots meet Sam's stomach before he had the chance to fully return his thoughts to the present and curl up to protect himself.

Sam bit his tongue to keep from making a sound and setting his collar off, then rolled into a ball to protect himself, facing his back to the task master. The steel toe boots crash against his back again and again, and he thought about how ugly the bruises would be. About how they would cover too much area.

He could only hope that there wouldn't be internal bleeding. None of them would care. The way Davies spoke, he'd sell Sam's organs and call it a good enough trade.

Just another number lost, scratched off a list and replaced with new meat.

There came a point where the kicks stopped, but the pain stayed. Sam was hauled back to his feet and shoved, stumbling, back to the crates.

"Get back to work," the task master said. "Slack again, and you'll be lashed."

He worked with the taste of blood in his mouth, but his body's protests slowed him. Without glancing, he knew the task master's eyes were on him. Waiting for him to slip again as an excuse to dole out another punishment. To tie him up and give him however many lashes.

His slower work seemed satisfactory enough, at least to the extent that it didn't warrant punishment.

But just because he wasn't being punished didn't mean the other kids weren't. Sometimes he heard them cry from distant parts of the factory. Sometimes they were close enough that he could hear them beg and plead for it to stop. He heard them loop apologies that fell on deaf ears, and he couldn't block it out or stop it from happening.


He made to through to dinner time uninterrupted and received another bowl of rice porridge—without eggs, he noticed—and another cup of tea. The routine was making itself clear quickly. Wake up. Cold shower. Porridge for breakfast. Work until dinner. More porridge. He assumed that working until bed time would round out the rest of the schedule.

The food was still bland and Sam wondered if he'd ever really taste something flavorful again. But it was food and served its purpose as sustenance.

They sat at tables, but no one talked to each other. Not really. Most sat quietly or sniffled. One of the sniffling children sat across from Sam.

The factory was filled with loud, crash-like noises at random intervals. When the machines acted up, mostly. Sam was waiting for the day when they would break down. A day which was probably decades overdue.

One of the crashes startled the already upset girl across from him, and she knocked her bowl of porridge to the ground by accident. It spilled across the floor, and within a minute the closest task master had her on her hands and knees with an old rag, sobbing and cleaning up the spill.

Sam knew for a fact that she would not be getting another bowl of porridge. They'd leave her to starve, whether it was out of frugality or in way of punishment.

He picked up his meal and walked around the table to her, setting his dinner at the spot where hers had been. She watched him with wide, grey eyes, still afraid. He couldn't assure her that he meant well with words. That he didn't need the porridge and would be fine missing a meal.

But he could help her up and guide her back to her seat. He nodded and smiled to let her know it was okay and took the rag from her hands. He fell to his own hands and knees and cleaned up the mess she made. He wasn't sure if it would cause more trouble for either of them, but he didn't have much reason to not take risks anymore.

His body ached, but he could clean up a little porridge without too many issues. When he was done and looked up, he found every set of eyes in the room focused on him.

The task master gripped his arm and heaved him up, dragging him through the factory.

"Interfere with punishments," he said, "and you'll be punished."

He wondered, if that were the case, why he waited until Sam finished cleaning the mess before dragging him away. His words were supposed to be a threat, but Sam had nothing left to lose. If it meant that girl was spared a little bit of misery, then so be it. They could do what they wanted.


Jerry's face paled at the sight of Sam's picture. "You have to be kidding me," he mumbled.

"So you know him?" John asked. "Where is he?"

"Gone," Jerry said. When he recovered from the initial shock, his fear gave way to amusement and he grinned. "Far, far away."

"Where is he?" John asked again, each word carefully enunciated.

Dean was sure that there had to be something wrong in Jerry's head to have this kind of sick pleasure out of angering his dad with a look of feral pride. He probably never came face-to-face with the family of any other kids. If he could put children through so much torment, why wouldn't he find pleasure in tormenting the families as well?

But if anyone could break a man down with force, it would be John Winchester on a mission for his son.

"Out of my hands," Jerry said. "Out of the continent by now, I'd bet."

"I'm not a man of patience," John said. "So here's your last chance to willingly tell me exactly where my son is before I have to force you to talk."

"Sorry, but you won't be finding him."

John nodded to himself, then looked at Dean. "I need to get some things from my truck," he said before he walked out of the motel room.

Jerry looked over at Dean. "What, you the kid's brother?"

"Yeah. I am."

"Dean," Caleb warned, "don't feed into him. Just keep quiet."

"Curious about what happened to your little brother?" Jerry asked.

"Not even a little bit."

"I can see you're lying."

Of course, he was lying. Sam had always been his greatest weakness. The only thing that could make him ignore the lifetime of training instilled in him. If he were honest with himself, a large portion of his identity relied on Sam's presence.

"Kid must be from Hell," Jerry said. "You have any idea how tough it was to drain the fight from him?"

"Shut up," Dean said.

His fists were clenched at his sides and ready to deck Jerry (begging to deck him), but his dad seemed to have a plan and he wouldn't be the one to mess with it.

"He hadn't said a word in days by the time we shipped him off," Jerry said.

That caught Dean's attention. Because Sam couldn't help not talking, even if he was just being a pain in the ass. He was someone who needed to be heard. He needed to express his thoughts. To not do that… To not do that was to not be Sam.

Dean wondered what the hell they could have done to make Sam that quiet, but the only image that came to his mind was Sam with blood pouring from his mouth, tongue cut out.

John walked back into the room with the weapons bag. Jerry turned to watch and asked, "Intimidation? Do you really think that's going to work?"

"Intimidation? You think that's what this is?" John asked. "I guess I wasn't clear enough. This is an interrogation."

Jerry's grin fell a bit. "You're not going to actually hurt me," he said.

"You hurt my son," John said.

"You can't be serious."

Caleb stepped over and sifted through the weapons bag. "Oh, he's serious," he said. "Looks like he's prepared to go all Spanish Inquisition on your ass. If only we had a rack for it, huh?"

Jerry's eyes darted between all of them. He licked his lips, and Dean swore he could see the sweat forming on his forehead. "Wait a minute. We don't need to be doing anything we're going to regret," he said.

Dean almost laughed at that, and saw the mild amusement in John's eyes.

"I won't regret it," John said. "Been dreaming of it, actually. How I'm going to rip apart the men who dared to take my son."

"You're bluffing," Jerry said. He didn't sound so certain anymore. So confident. Like he thought the world would never hurt him.

"He's not," Dean said. "He's really not."

John pulled pliers out of the bag and gripped the tip of one of Jerry's fingernails with it. "Do you still think I'm bluffing?"

"He's in Hong Kong," Jerry breathed. "God, please don't hurt me."

"Why is he in Hong Kong?"

"I sold him," Jerry said.

Caleb took a bandanna and held in it Jerry's mouth, gagged him with it so he wouldn't call too much attention. He nodded to John.

John jerked the pliers back, taking Jerry's fingernail with them.

Jerry cried out in muffled pain and tried to speak. Caleb removed the bandanna. "Hundred thousand. It was for a hundred thousand," Jerry added. "What else do you want from me?"

Like they had discussed it beforehand, and for all Dean knew they might have, Caleb knew exactly when to gag him with the bandanna and when to pull it away.

John tore off another fingernail. "You sold my son for a hundred thousand?"

Dean wanted to kill Jerry. He saw red and wanted to see Jerry covered in red. One hundred thousand. Someone bought Sam for one hundred thousand dollars and had him shipped off to fucking Hong Kong.

Sam was halfway across the world in Asia.

He thought they were finally close, that he would finally see Sam again, but Sam was farther away than ever before.

He wanted to gut Jerry, and then Rich. He wanted to rip out Jerry's intestines and gag him with them instead of a bandanna. He knew that his dad, no matter how calm he appeared, was filled with rage as well. He saw it in his father's movements. But his dad kept control, for now, because he still needed answers.

Dean wasn't sure if he could've done the same. If he could've kept himself from outright killing Jerry.

"It's yours, if you want it," Jerry said. "Just let me go. Don't hurt me anymore."

"You're certainly willing to hurt kids," Caleb said.

"I don't want your money," John said. "I want names and locations. Who bought my son and where is he right now?"

"I don't know where he is right now," Jerry said, his words coming out in a rush. "It's not my business anymore once he's sold."

John took a fingernail from the opposite hand. "Not good enough. Who has him?"

"I can't tell you that," Jerry said. "It's business. You understand, don't you?"

John put the pliers back in the weapons bag, and Jerry breathed a sigh of relief with a grin. "I knew you were a reasonable man," he said, hissing in the middle of his sentence when he moved his fingers.

Dean watched, knowing that his dad wasn't as reasonable as Jerry thought. Knowing that he wouldn't let Jerry off that easily if he were in charge either.

John pulled out a thin, black cloth and nodded to Caleb, who apparently knew where this was going.

Dean had a pretty good guess himself, and he couldn't wait for it.


Sam was left outside, chained to the building by his ankle, for the rest of the evening and through the night. Still, he didn't regret his actions. A scared, little girl got to have a meal and was spared punishment for an accident. To him, that was worth it.

He sat in the dark behind the factory and looked at the neon signs that he couldn't read. The smell of street food made its way to him, and his empty stomach grumbled (and that meant that the little girl's stomach wasn't grumbling, he reminded himself).

He watched cars drive on distant roads, free to go where they pleased. If he could find something to pick the lock of the metal cuff on his ankle, he might be able to share in that freedom.

But where could he even go from there? Who would help someone branded as a slave?

The night came with a chill, but it wasn't unbearable. He wondered what his dad and Dean were up to. If they figured out what happened to him, or if they were just tracking a bunch of dead ends. While he wished that he could contact them somehow and let them know that he was at least still alive, a part of him didn't want them to witness the state he'd been reduced to. He wasn't sure he could be the son or brother they remembered anymore.

He wasn't sure they would want to have him as a son or brother anymore. Logically, he knew they would never forsake him like that. That they were both prepared to tear the world apart for him.

At the same time, there was a lot he didn't know anymore. Good and evil meant everything and nothing. There were humans who needed to be hunted and supernatural creatures who deserved to live. His world used to revolve around communication and the ability to pass along information (research or recreational), but now his world was reduced to silence and he was beginning to forget what his own voice sounded like.

He curled around his knees, pulled to his chest, as the night chill started to bother him, but how could it not when his thoughts felt just as frigid?

For fifteen years, his family always made sure he had someplace warm to spend the night. It might not have been the best place, but it always did its job.

When he was hurt, he always woke up to painkillers and a glass of water waiting on the nightstand.

He never imagined that having those little things taken away would make him believe that maybe his family spoiled him. He used to think that he was being deprived of the basics of life: a stable home, steady attendance at school, nightmares that only show up in his sleep.

Now, his life didn't seem all that bad. Hunting wasn't his favorite thing to do, but it was better than being a slave. If he could chose, he'd go right back to the life of non-human monsters and never complain about it again.

In the end, it really wasn't that bad of a life he once lived (was he still even living?).

He looked at the numbers tattooed on the inside of his forearm. Was even even still Sam, or was he just this string of numbers forcibly marked onto his skin permanently?

The small shivers that ran through his body aggravated the fresh bruises on his back along with his still healing shoulders, once again making sleep nothing more than a distant dream that would never come.


They tilted Jerry's chair back against the table. Caleb held the cloth over his face and John found a basin, filled it with water, and poured it over his mouth.

With all of Jerry's coughing, hacking, and begging, they weren't getting many answers.

He felt useless standing there and staring (and he obviously wasn't going to be invited to help), so Dean sat on the bed next to where Rich was tied up and left on the floor. Caleb and John didn't need his help, not now, but maybe he could get Rich to tell him something about Sam that would give them a place to start in case Jerry died before he broke.

"So, anything to say?" Dean asked him. He pegged Rich as more of a follower from the start, and his submission and willingness to sit quietly in the corner to avoid a little pain reinforced that idea.

"Jerry knows more than I do," Rich said. He sounded small and afraid, like a child. "I wouldn't be able to tell you where your brother is. I don't know those specifics. We don't ask. After the deal is done, it's done. Please don't hurt me."

"I just want to know what happened to my brother," Dean said. He didn't add that Rich would be in a world of pain soon enough since none of them planned on leaving anyone involved in Sam's kidnapping alive. He didn't think Rich would be very willing to talk to him knowing that.

Having a conversation while his father waterboarded a man maybe ten feet away.

"Jerry told you what happened to him."

"He told me that you guys sold him," Dean admitted, "but not what happened to him."

"You should be worried about what will happen to him. The things we do are nothing compared to what the buyers do."

"And you still sell kids to them."

"I needed the money."

"Most people don't turn to selling children—children—into slavery when they need a quick buck," Dean said.

"You've never felt it," Rich said. He wouldn't meet Dean's eyes. "You don't know what it's like. To know that you hold so much power over someone else. To know that you practically hold their life in your hands."

"Don't any of you realize how sick and twisted that is?" Dean asked. "That's so far past normal. All of you should have been put down like the fucking animals you are."

Dean stood up and gestured to Jerry while he kept his eyes on Rich. "You and him sold my little brother like a piece of meat! One hundred thousand. Is that one hundred thousand worth losing your lives over?" he asked, his voice raising with each word.

Rich met Dean's eyes. "Losing my life… You're going to kill us?" he asked.

"Why shouldn't I?" Dean asked. "Give me one good reason why I should overlook what you've done and let you live."

"We—we answered your questions," Rich said. "We told you that your brother is in Hong Kong. We can't tell you more than that."

Dean looked over to see his father leaned in close to Jerry, who seemed to be speaking, but his words were too quiet for Dean to hear. He looked back at Rich, who followed Dean's line of sight to Jerry and then back.

"Can't or won't?" Dean asked. "You wanna be waterboarded like your pal over there? I'm sure my dad would be glad to make that wish come true."

Rich appeared to be on the verge of passing out, but he weakly shook his head instead. "No. No, that's not necessary."

"Great. Then, how about telling me anything else that would be helpful in finding my brother?"

"The guys who bought him are named Davies and Liu," Rich said. "I'm too new to know them on a personal level, but I know that Davies has a textile company with a factory out in Hong Kong."

"And Liu?" Dean asked.

Rich swallowed, his eyes darted towards everything except Dean.

Which meant that whatever he said about Liu would be something he didn't want to hear. Forced labor at a textile company, Sam could handle that long enough for them to break him out. But if he had two 'owners' (bastards who thought he was their property), then were they both working the same gig? Probably not, since Rich referred to it as Davies' textile company.

"Liu runs nightclubs in Hong Kong," Rich finally said.

"Okay," Dean said. "And?"

"And they have back rooms. For patrons who want to spend a high price for some fun. Rough fun."

The pieces took only a second to snap together and form a full image in Dean's mind, but when they did, he almost threw up.

Sam needed an escape now. He needed one yesterday. He needed one weeks ago.

He had needed Dean to be there for him.

Dean nodded a few times and walked over to the weapons bag. John gave him a questioning look, but Dean shook his head and was relieved that John trusted him enough to let it drop at that.

If John heard their conversation, he would have agreed wholly with what Dean planned to do.

Dean pulled out the pliers his dad used earlier, but decided on grabbing one of the knives and a bandanna at the last minute as well. He went back to kneel in front of a terrified Rich who was trying to squirm away to no avail.

"I really don't like you, Rich," Dean said. He tied the bandanna tight around Rich's head, gagging him. "I hate your guts, actually. If it had just been forced labor, I could have managed to keep myself in check long enough. After all, there are worse things."

Dean pulled out one of Rich's fingernails without effort. "Worse things like being a damn nightclub backroom attraction," he said. (He wouldn't call it anything else. He wouldn't call it anything that implied the worst of what could happen there.)

Rich's breaths turned into ragged gasps.

"I really wish that I had the time to take you apart piece by piece," he said. He pulled out another nail. "I don't, but that doesn't mean I can't make you suffer in the short time we have together."

Dean took the knife and cut one of the legs of Rich's jeans at the knee, pulling off the excess material. "As much as I wish I could take my time and rip off all of your fingernails and toenails, well, I don't think that it will make you suffer as much in the same amount of time as this."

Dean held down Rich's leg and made a cut with the knife, not terribly deep, but deep enough. Then, he tilted the knife's blade and flayed off a strip of skin from Rich's leg. Blood welled up and spilled over onto the nearby skin. Tears streamed down Rich's face and he made small, muffled, high-pitched sounds in his pain.

"Do you think I'm a monster?" Dean demanded.

Rich nodded, squeezing his eyes shut.

"You're wrong," Dean said. He gripped the knife tight and the hilt dug into his palm, but that grip was the only thing keeping him from shoving the blade into Rich's throat. "You're the monster. It's you."

He flayed off another strip of skin from Rich's leg. And another. Until his dad's hand on his shoulder pulled him back from his murderous trance and Rich laid barely conscious on the ground with a leg missing half of its skin.

Dean looked over his shoulder at his dad, who nodded to him. "Jerry broke. Gave us the names of the companies, and Sam's number, but he really doesn't know anymore than that," he said. "It will take a little longer to find the factory and club with the specifics, but we have a place to start. Better clean this mess up so we can be on our way."

"What if we're too late?" Dean asked. "What if Sam is forced to…"

He couldn't finish that question, but he saw in John's eyes that he understood. That he shared his fears.

"Then, we just won't be late," he said.

Dean nodded, but they both knew that they were already too late. They had been too late since the second Sam disappeared, and they would never be able to make up for anything he had to go through between then and when they finally found him.

Everything he had to go through because of Dean's misjudgment.


Author's Note: I hope that the torture was satisfactory. Despite raising the rating, there are still some things that I don't want to write out too graphically due to personal preferences. Jerry tried to be cocky and thought that they wouldn't hurt him, but he thought wrong. He should be grateful though that it wasn't Dean torturing him, considering he flayed his friend out of anger.

In the meantime, Sam is still not having fun. But Liu hasn't gotten his hands on him yet either, so Dean, John, and Caleb still have a little bit of time.

Anyway, thank you to those who review, follow, favorite, and read. Please take a second to leave a review on your way out, they always make my day!