Challenge 10 - You think this troubles me?
Thanks for the reviews and the suggestions, Kathy! This one's for you! :-)
Sam was well and truly screwed.
It was a state with which he was sadly familiar, but that didn't change the fact that he was in serious trouble with no idea how he was going to get out of it.
He sat quietly in the back of the police car and watched all the activity around him with growing anxiety. There were too many people around for him to try running even if he managed to get out of the locked car or get the handcuffs off his wrists. Cops and rubber-neckers were crowding the scene, and Sam was glad that the police tape at least kept the curious bystanders far enough away that he wouldn't end up on youtube or something.
There was nothing else he could do but sit there while the local sheriff talked to someone on his cell phone and shot suspicious glances in Sam's direction. There were three deputies who milled about, ostensibly securing the scene, but in reality they were merely trampling on the evidence. They probably represented every deputy in the county. Sam was okay with them inadvertently obscuring what had happened in the old house, but he really needed to finish what he had come there to do in the first place before the angry spirit killed someone.
Sam twisted his wrists, but he could tell from long experience that he wasn't getting free without a key or lockpicks, and he had neither. His only hope was his brother, but he wasn't even sure that Dean had gotten his message. He had only had enough time to send a single word of warning before he was surrounded and unceremoniously arrested for breaking and entering and impersonating a police officer.
In his defence, he hadn't exactly introduced himself as a police officer to anyone. He was just carrying the ID, but that didn't change the fact that it was clearly fake if one knew what they were looking at, and the local sheriff obviously did.
His phone, weapons, and lockpick had been seized, which was inconvenient, but it was the fact that at the time of his arrest he had a Latin cleansing spell and a shrivelled human foot in his possession that tipped the scale from inconvenienced to completely screwed.
He still wasn't certain what had alerted the local law to his presence in the abandoned house - probably a nosy neighbour. Nosy neighbours could be both a blessing and a bane to hunters.
Whatever the case, they weren't going to let a man toting around human remains and a fake ID out of their sight. He was probably the most exciting case ever to pop up in Nowheresville, USA.
Movement beside his window startled him and Sam looked up to see the sheriff peering in at him. Sam mustered a tight-lipped smile, trying not to look particularly threatening or insane.
The sheriff sighed and opened the front door, sliding into the driver's seat with a groan that indicated he probably had a bad back.
"Son, you are in a world of trouble," the sheriff announced needlessly, looking at Sam in the rearview mirror.
"That's kind of what I was thinking," Sam agreed.
"Do you want to tell us where your partner is? The fellow you were texting when we caught you?"
Sam raised an eyebrow and shrugged in feigned innocence. "What partner?"
"Right." The sheriff sighed again and started the car.
"What's going to happen now?" Sam asked as they pulled away from the house, leaving the deputies to work the scene.
"Now, I take you back to the station where we run your prints and try to figure out who the hell you really are. Then we try to figure out whose foot you have and whether you're some kind of confused kook or someone who gets off on performing satanic mumbo jumbo with human remains. And then we get you to tell us where your partner is so we can do the same with him."
Sam nodded thoughtfully. "You put something in the trunk earlier. Was it the foot?"
The sheriff sat up straighter at his words. "Damn, boy! That is not the question you want to ask when we're trying to figure out if you're a nutcase or not."
"I'm not a nutcase," Sam replied, "and you don't want to know what's going on with that foot." He couldn't very well tell the cop that he still needed to cleanse and burn the foot to put a vengeful spirit to rest, so he fell silent. It wasn't like the other man would believe him anyway.
"You think this troubles me? The severed foot and the satanic spells?" The cop let out a bitter laugh. "Son, you're not as scary as you seem to think. That is, unless you want to confess that you're somehow responsible for those attacks that have been happening around here."
The statement was more of a question, but Sam didn't respond. He had been trying to stop the attacks, but it wasn't an argument that would hold much weight in a court of law.
Instead, he turned his attention to his window, signalling the end to the conversation.
Sam pondered his options as he stared into the night. He didn't want to hurt the sheriff, but it looked like he'd have to make his move when he was being transferred from the car into the station. He'd take the cop down, grab the keys to his cuffs, and steal the car. He could be long gone with the ritual completed before they could do anything to stop him -
There!
Sam had to stop himself from reacting as they drove past a side street - a side street from which a very familiar black car pulled out and casually began following the police car at a safe distance.
Dean was there.
The relief was palpable. Sam would have attempted his own escape, but knowing that he had backup made the entire endeavour seem less prone to failure. This way, he didn't even have to get the keys; as soon as he took down the sheriff, his brother would be there to help him get the foot and get out of town.
Win-win.
Except it wasn't ever going to be that easy and Sam should have known better.
The Impala drove past the station as the police car pulled in and Sam watched his brother turn down the next street. Dean would park and make his way over before Sam made his move. It wouldn't be long now.
The sheriff pulled up directly out front of the small station and turned off the car.
Sam waited patiently, trying not to look like he was tensing to attack.
The sheriff circled the car and reached for the handle just as the door to the station opened and two deputies came hurrying out to assist their boss.
Sam let out a small hiss of disappointment. He couldn't easily take out all three with his hands cuffed behind him, at least not before he got taken down himself. He tried to look past the cops for Dean, but didn't get the chance to find him as the door was opened and he was tugged out of the car with surprisingly little force.
"Take him in and get him fingerprinted," the sheriff ordered. "I want everything you can find out about him as soon as possible."
One deputy took Sam's arm and the other followed a step behind as they headed into the station. Sam watched for Dean, waiting for his signal to move, but he couldn't spot his brother anywhere.
The deputy behind him gave him a small push toward the door and Sam was forced to enter the building. He let out a worried huff as the window for escape disappeared with the gentle click of the closing door.
He could only hope that Dean had a plan.
The deputies led him to an interrogation room where his handcuffs were removed so his hands could be re-secured to the table. With that done, the cops left him alone, presumably to get their fingerprinting materials. Sam could only hope the station hadn't been updated to digital printing technology or he'd be identified even faster.
He fidgeted in his seat as he tried to loosen the cuffs, finally tugging at them sharply in a fit of frustration.
A sudden piercing siren rang out through the building, making Sam wince at the screeching noise.
There was no way a sudden fire alarm wasn't connected to his brother.
Then the lights went out.
Sam sat up straighter.
It was definitely Dean's doing.
He turned to the door, startled as he heard shouting from the hallway and the sounds of boots running full-tilt past his room. Only moments later, the door opened and Dean hurried in, a cocky grin on his face.
"Took you long enough," Sam groused, knocking a little bit of the smugness out of his brother's expression - but only a little.
"Did they print you yet?" Dean asked, wasting no time bending over to pick the locks holding Sam's cuffs to the table.
Sam shook his head. "They didn't have time."
"Then it didn't take me too long to rescue you, princess," Dean said with a triumphant smirk as the cuffs clicked open.
"There's still the small matter of the human foot that's now somewhere in the station," Sam replied even as he sprang to his feet and headed for the door. "We can't leave without it."
Dean was only a step behind him. "It should be right in the front lobby. The sheriff would have just gotten inside when the fire alarm went off. No way is he taking his evidence with him to put out a fire, so he probably dumped it there. Cutting the power knocked out the security cameras and if we hurry, we should be able to grab the foot and walk out the front door without ending up on tape."
Dean sounded impossibly pleased with himself.
Sam cautiously opened the door and peered into the hallway to determine if the coast was clear. "Dean, is that smoke? Did you start an actual fire?"
"Just a small one," Dean protested. "They had an extinguisher nearby."
Sam didn't waste his breath trying to berate his brother. They raced to the lobby where a large black duffel bag was resting haphazardly on a desk. Dean made a triumphant sound that Sam ignored.
Sam reached for the duffel, unzipping it far enough to tell that it held several evidence bags, one of which contained a human foot and another of which seemed to have his phone.
"Got it!" he announced with a grin.
They didn't linger to press their luck. Rarely did they get a chance for a clean getaway and neither hunter wanted to miss the opportunity. Besides, they still had work to do and a shrivelled body part to burn.
The brothers dashed for freedom, disappearing into the night as the fire alarm wailed behind them.