Chapter 11

Sam leaned back in the uncomfortable motel chair, arching his back and stretching his arms behind his head. He yawned loudly. They had been poring over books and the internet for hours, searching for any information, any lore about their suspected culprit. Sam's body and brain both felt exhausted.

"I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere, man," his words came out garbled halfway through his yawn.

"Yeah, what you just said," Dean responded, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands. Normally, he would have flaked out of research long before this, leaving Sam to finish the part of the hunt that he was better at. Dean had never considered himself the academic of the duo. But he had persisted in this instance, feeling a certain obligation to defend his theory.

"You still sure about this?" Sam asked.

"I'm sure. I know that's what it was, Sammy. It took a while to remember where I'd seen them, but I can picture those bodies just as clear as day."

Dean was convinced that they were dealing with a djinn or some offshoot of the djinn family. The dried husks of bodies that had been found looked just like the ones he had seen all those years ago when he had been captured by a djinn.

The legends of djinn, or genies, who granted wishes had turned out to be not entirely accurate. What the djinn actually did was put its victims in a trance where they imagined themselves living lives based on their deepest wishes. And while they lived in that dream world, blissfully unaware as the djinn's magic poisoned their mind, the djinn fed on them in the real world, sucking the life out of them.

For Dean, his wish had been a life where his mother was still alive and he and Sam had never become hunters. But even while caught in the djinn's trance, his hunter's mind had fought to assert itself. Images from reality had continually disturbed his peaceful, imaginary existence. He had seen visions of another hostage – a pitiable, ghostlike young girl – appearing in the most unlikely of places. And he had also glimpsed the corpses of two victims that the djinn had already feasted on. That horrifying sight was exactly like the victims they were dealing with now.

The problem was, nothing other than the appearance of the two latest bodies matched anything he and Sam knew about djinn. Djinn were found in ruins, not natural areas. And they disposed of their victims carefully. They certainly didn't throw them out in public places where they were sure to be found. Add in Clemmer Adams' public appearance and gnawed bones, and the case made even less sense. Djinn weren't able to take on the appearance of their victims, and they didn't eat human flesh.

Sam and Dean were stumped, and exhausted, and apparently starved if the noise that Dean's stomach suddenly made was any indication.

"We've got to get out of here," Dean announced, standing up. "Get some food, I'm starving."

"I noticed. Aren't you even a little bit concerned that people are out there searching where this thing might be?" Sam asked.

Kayle had reported their suspicions to Chief Hutchison about the victims being held in a cave. Chief Hutchison had in turn talked to the Chief Ranger in the Big South Fork National Park, and park rangers had been sent out to look for signs of suspicious activity. Lacking any actual caves, they were concentrating on areas with rocky walls or overhangs that might be easily accessible from roads through the park.

"No," Dean scoffed. "They have those rangers looking in places just right off the beaten path. They're not going to find anything." What he and Sam knew that the park rangers didn't was the potential strength of the predator they were dealing with. Djinn or something else, supernatural creatures were stronger than humans. And that meant it was probably taking its victims somewhere that humans could not easily follow.

"Alright, let's get something to eat," Sam agreed. He stood and stretched and headed out the motel door into the parking lot.

"Be right there…" Dean called.

He was almost to the bathroom when he heard the roar of an engine revving and the squealing of tires. He turned just in time to hear Sam's surprised yell followed by a loud thud. By the time Dean reached the door, the car was tearing off down the road and Sam lay in the parking lot, not moving.

"Sam! Sammy!" Dean raced to his brother and fell to his knees. He held a hand against Sam's neck. There was a pulse. Dean began to quickly scan over Sam's body for an inventory of injuries. No visible bones – blood in lots of places, but nothing gushing – breathing shallow but even. Blood behind Sam's ear was the most troubling thing. It looked like he might have been thrown into the bumper of one of the cars in the parking lot. Dean looked around frantically. A couple of people had come out from other rooms and from the front office.

"Call 911!" Dean hollered, and a man hurried back into the office to place the call.

"Sam? Sam, can you hear me?" No response.

Dean woke instantly when someone entered the hospital room. He had been halfway dozing on and off throughout the evening, slumped in one torturous hospital chair while his feet were propped up in another, as nurses and technicians and doctors bustled in and out. Following the ambulance to the nearest hospital, some thirty miles away; the nerve-wracking wait for tests and assessments in the ER; and everything that had been required to actually get Sam admitted to a room had worn him out. The good news was that his brother's list of injuries seemed to comprise nothing that he hadn't had before: abrasions, concussion, internal bruising – Sam had survived a hell of a lot worse. The bad news was that all of those injuries sustained in a single instant were apparently a little much for Sam's body to handle. He still had not regained consciousness.

Dr. Mallicoat, the physician who seemed to be in charge of the case, walked over to the bed and peered at the machine readouts. Dean sat up straight and put both feet on the floor as the doctor turned to give him an update.

"Vital signs all strong. And no signs of internal bleeding, so that's good," Dr. Mallicoat reported. "The swelling from the concussion seems to be relatively minimal."

"Then why isn't he awake yet?" Dean asked as he stood.

"He did sustain some very serious injuries, Agent Van Zant. I can't say exactly when he'll be awake. Only that I do expect he'll awaken."

"Yeah, well I expect he will too – I just wish he'd hurry up and do it so we could get back to our damn job." Dean used every ounce of anxiety in the pit of his stomach to sound as aggravated as possible about a partner stupid enough to get himself hit by a car. He wasn't sure, the past few hours were a blur, but he feared that his behavior since the accident might have strained credulity for an FBI partner relationship.

"Agent Medlocke did have some interesting anomalies in his x-rays and tests…" Dr. Mallicoat put the comment out there casually and waited to see how Dean might respond.

"Well, I think he's led a pretty interesting life. Maybe you can ask his family about it when they get here," Dean answered. He couldn't even recall everything that might show up on an x-ray or in bloodwork, on either of them. Better leave that subject for Agent Medlock's fictitious family speeding to them from Seattle, Washington. It was the furthest place that had come to Dean's mind when confronted with the question of next of kin. He wished now that he had said Hawaii.

"I'll do that," Dr. Mallicoat said. There was an undercurrent of suspicion in his tone. "Why don't I have someone give you a call as soon as your partner regains consciousness?"

"I'll stay," Dean responded a little too quickly. "It's policy. Policy says you stay with your partner in situations like this." He could hear himself saying too much – you sound like a moron – and took a deep breathe to stop himself. "I'm sorry, it's just been a long time since I've eaten. I think I'm a little punch drunk. I'll just…I'll just stay."

Dr. Mallicoat gave him a long, appraising look, and Dean was too tired to hide his worry and fear anymore. He knows I'm lying. Maybe he'll try to throw me out. Well, he can try. Whatever the doctor saw in Dean's face apparently convinced him that Dean was relatively harmless.

"I'll have a nurse bring you some food," Dr. Mallicoat said.

"Thank you," Dean sat down heavily. "Thanks, doc." He watched as the doctor left the room, then let his gaze roam over the numerous tubes and machines attached to Sam's body.

Come on, Sammy. You've got to wake up. We've got to get back to the hunt, man –

Kayle came into the room so quietly that Dean was startled when she spoke.

"They found the car abandoned about twenty miles outside town. It was reported stolen from Winfield."

"No way to tell who was driving, I guess?" Dean asked.

"No. No clue about that. We talked to people at the motel. No one saw the car hit him and no one saw the car in the parking lot before it happened. Have you asked Agent Medlocke? Did he get any look at the driver?"

"He hasn't been awake, so I haven't had a chance to ask him."

Kayle stood for a minute looking at Sam's motionless body. "Is he going to be okay?"

"Doc says he is. He's tough. A hit-and-run isn't going to keep him off the case for long."

"You think the accident had to do with the investigation?" Kayle made it more of a statement than a question. She came around the end of the hospital bed and took a seat in the chair next to Dean, a look of concern and confusion on her face.

Dean didn't respond immediately. He knew there had to be a link between the hunt and Sam getting plowed down in a motel parking lot. How could there not be a connection? But the car just added one more layer of confusion to an already confusing case. Had someone actually been driving it, or had it been controlled by some kind of spirit? They had definitely seen that happen before – spirits controlling inanimate objects, using the objects to do the spirit's dirty work. But djinn weren't spirits, and spirits didn't leave husks of victims around that looked like the work of a djinn, and djinn didn't get their victims by hitting them with a car and putting them in the hospital, and he and Sam had never encountered a spirit or a djinn that ate human flesh... The more Dean considered the question, the more his thoughts began to jumble.

"Yes, I think the hit-and-run wasn't an accident, and I think it had something to do with the case. I just don't know what." Dean said.

"I'm sure Agent Medlocke will be able to give us some help as soon as he wakes up." Kayle said. "He surely saw something about the driver." She laid one hand gently on top of Dean's hand. "Hey, he's going to be okay."

"Thanks, yeah, I know he is." Dean said with more assurance than he felt. "But it looks like the big dummy isn't waking up until he makes me sleep on a hospital chair all night."

Kayle stayed a little longer discussing the case. There really wasn't much to report on, no new developments and, thankfully, no new victims had turned up. She left when a nurse came in with a tray of food for Dean, promising to check in the next morning.

"Alright, Sammy." Dean said as he kicked his feet back up in the chair opposite him and looked with distaste at a bland piece of chicken. "I'm eating hospital food now – I hope you're happy."

He ate every bite of the tasteless food because he was ravenous, then stood up and checked all of the monitors. Nothing seemed to have changed, and Sam still hadn't moved. Dean sat back down. He tried to remember how many times he had sat like this, worrying that this time their luck really had run out. He gave a small, grim laugh at the idea of any part of their lives being considered "lucky". But they always managed to keep going. Only this time, who could say, maybe Sam wouldn't.

Unwelcomed thoughts crept like black shadows into Dean's mind – thoughts of losing his brother, thoughts of the future that lay ahead with the Darkness determined to destroy all of creation. He tried to push the thoughts away, tried to shove them down and concentrate on the current case and on when Sam would be up to getting back to work. But it was hard to fight the dragging weight of despair when his brother was lying in a hospital bed, when their best friend had given up hope to such an extent that he had allowed himself to be possessed by Lucifer. The Darkness was so much more powerful than anything they had faced before.

God, I can't do this alone. I know this is my fault, and I'm sorry. We lost Cas. Please don't let me lose Sam, too, please -

It was around midnight when Dean was awakened by sounds coming from the nearby bed. He sat up immediately then blinked in that direction, trying to focus. Sam was twitching and rolling his head in an agitated manner. He began trying to move, to roll over or sit up. Dean stood and leaned over his brother. He put a hand on Sam's shoulder, both to quiet his movements and to shake him just a bit.

"Sam…hey, Sammy…Sammy…"

Finally, Sam opened his eyes. Dean felt an ache leave his chest that he hadn't even realized had been there.

"Dean? Wh-where?" Sam looked around blearily. "Am I…?" He tried to clear his throat, his voice low and hoarse. "Am I in the hospital? What happened?"

"Yeah, you're in the hospital. But you're fine…you're fine," Dean smiled weakly. "Do you remember getting hit?"

Sam raised his arm and gingerly felt the lump on his head. He winced and nodded.

"Yeah, I do. How long have I been out?"

He was dismayed to hear that he had been unconscious for nearly nine hours, but insisted on trying to sit up immediately. He raised up and swayed for just a moment, Dean hovering next to him. Then, when Sam seemed to have steadied himself, Dean lowered the railing for him and Sam swung his legs over the side of the hospital bed. He grimaced at the attachments dangling from his arms. Sam plucked the oxygen monitor off of his finger, yanked the blood pressure cuff off of his arm, and then pulled the IV needle out and tossed it aside.
"Where are my clothes? Let's get out of here."

"Damn right," Dean said approvingly.

It wasn't quite that easy, though. They had barely gotten Sam wrestled into his clothes when a cadre of nurses bustled into the room in answer to the emergency call of the monitors. Deprived of an oxygen level and blood pressure to track, the machines were frantically announcing the patient's imminent death, and the nurses were insistent that Sam lay back down and be re-tethered at once.

What ensued next was a minor tug-of-war as one nurse tried to talk Dean into leaving the room, while two other nurses tried to force Sam back into bed. Over many protests, and with a lot of help from Dean, who was frankly carrying a large portion of Sam's weight as he leaned into Dean's shoulder; they made their way out of the room and eventually out of the hospital. Dean and Sam both gave sighs of relief when they were finally breathing the free air of the parking lot.

"Come on, man. We do need to get you back to bed," Dean said. He put his arm around Sam's waist and practically carried him to the Impala. Sam fell asleep on the ride back to the motel, but he awakened easily enough when they stopped and staggered, with Dean's help, into the room, barely making it to the bed. Dean pulled Sam's shoes off, threw a blanket over him, pulled off his own shoes, and collapsed on his own bed.

Thank you – was his last thought.