Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
Warnings: None? Maybe implications, but that's a bit of a stretch.
"First, it's a plane. Now, I have to get on a freaking boat?" Dean asked.
The air filled with saltwater from the sea was pleasant, reminding him of the handful of times they'd taken a hunt in California—hunts that Sam always loved just for the chance to go out and see the ocean. The chance to be warm and basked in sunlight.
John opened his mouth, but Dean cut him off before he could speak and said, "And no, staying behind is not an option. I haven't come this far just to back down now."
Their ride came into the docks, and Caleb looked sick at the sight of the ferry. Dean was secretly glad that he wasn't the only one not looking forward to the trip. Planes and boats. He just wanted Baby back.
"We couldn't have found a closer airport? One where we wouldn't need to go over water?" Dean asked.
John shrugged, completely unfazed by the idea of taking a ferry. "It's where the first flight to Hong Kong we could get on was going. We would have had to wait a lot longer for a flight from Chicago. Beggars and choosers, Dean."
"Yeah, yeah."
"You think they took Sam on a ferry?" Dean asked, not quite certain about why he was curious in the first place. Someone would have noticed if a boat had human slaves on it and reported it, wouldn't they? They wouldn't have been able to stuff a bunch of kids below deck without anyone noticing and realizing that something wasn't right with the scene.
John shrugged. "I doubt it. I doubt that they came to the same airport as us either. Too big. Too many people. Too many witnesses."
"I guess. I just—God, I don't get how they can make kids disappear so completely like this."
"I've seen a lot of evil," John said, "but nothing more-so than humans. They don't have excuses for tormenting others. They rationalize it, sure, but they're so twisted that their actions make sense to them."
"It's why I didn't want you poking around at this, Dean," he added softly.
He didn't sound angry or disappointed this time. Just sad.
Dean wondered if that was worse. Things had to be bad for his strong father—the one he used to think of as invincible—to sound that broken. That lost. Was John hiding something from him again in an attempt to protect him?
That worked well last time.
"You have no idea how much I wish I could change it," Dean said. "To go back and make it so that this never happened. To make it so that I stayed with Sam instead of leaving him alone. I should have known better. I should have known. And I should have been there to protect him. I should have kept him safe."
Because both Sam and their dad telling him that the case of the missing children wasn't their kind of thing hadn't been enough to convince him to stay out of it. Why did he have to be so full of himself at that time? Why did he have to play hero? Why couldn't he have seen it in the way Sam did?
There were a lot of questions about his actions that he couldn't answer. All he knew was that he just wanted to help.
"I know, Dean," John said. "I wish that I told you the whole story from the get-go. But I didn't tell you. And you didn't stay with Sam. There's enough blame for the both of us."
Even if his dad said that and was trying to comfort him, Dean felt most of the blame falling squarely on his shoulders for failing to do the one job that had always been the most important to him.
Watch out for Sammy.
He wouldn't have blamed John for lashing out at him physically after finding out the cost of Dean's mistakes, but he hadn't. He'd been angry, sure, and he made Dean stick with him. Kept him out of the loop. But he still showed that he cared with little actions. Making sure he took care of himself.
Dean was the reason that John's younger son was sold into slavery, and John never once raised his hand to strike Dean. He just continued to watch out for him. He worked on getting one son back while ensuring that he didn't lose the other.
He wouldn't have blamed Sam for hating him. For losing that unconditional trust he had in Dean as a child. He could have lost that hero worship and the semi-childish notion that his brother might have actually been some sort of superhero who would always be there to rescue him if he needed it. But he hadn't lost any of those. When Sam had the chance to make one phone call in the middle of a living nightmare, he called Dean. Despite all of his faults, Sam still trusted him enough to help him. Sam still wanted him to be a hero.
Sometimes he felt like the world owed him something, but now he thought that maybe he owed the world something for giving him his Dad and Sam. For letting him have their love, despite the fact that he didn't deserve it.
The smoke filled his lungs quickly, and when he started coughing, he found it near impossible to stop. Sam wondered if this might be the end for him. No matter how much effort he put into trying to stagger his way out of the factory, he couldn't see where he was going with everything swallowed in flames.
It didn't help that his head still felt like it was on the verge of splitting apart, the wounds on his back had to be reopened (he felt blood dripping from them again and tracing patterns across his skin), and the piece of burning debris that grazed his leg left it bloodied and burnt and unable to support much of his weight.
He couldn't make it outside in his state. He thought of Dean and his dad, chasing down a corpse without knowing it. Without knowing that Sam died via baptism by fire.
Just like his mom.
But a pair of arms (not particularly strong, but Sam was small anyway and likely smaller with how little he'd had to eat lately) heaved him up and dragged him along through the building. Sam spotted a tattoo on the inside of his arm. One that trailed halfway up his forearm and made of neat, little numbers. 14710. Another slave.
He was a little older, but Sam noticed that some of the slaves at the factory were. If they could still do the job as they grew older, he supposed they just stayed because they had nowhere else to go. They stayed because they had no choice and had yet to be worked to death.
"Saw you help that girl at dinner," he said, his voice raspy from either the smoke or disuse. "Gave up your own meal."
Sam couldn't remember ever hearing any of the other slaves speak before. He thought that their collars were all like his own. Ready to shock them at the slightest sound.
"I've been here for years, and never saw anyone take someone else's punishment," he continued. "Then, you pulled the boy out from that machine, saved his life, and then punished again. I guess it's your turn to be helped."
Sam shook his head, but 14710 either didn't notice, or Sam didn't move it enough for it to be noticed.
He didn't want to be saved from the fire. The flames gave him an odd sense of belonging. The strange notion that he needed to stay among them. Besides, what was there for him to go to except back into slavery? He didn't want to be shipped to the next closest factory to work while he waited for this one to be rebuilt.
He would rather be left in the flames.
Instead, 14710 weaved him through the burning factory to the lot behind it. Sam saw the dried bloodstains still on the ground from his whipping.
The other slaves who made it out stood in a crowd, corralled by the task masters. Not all of them were lucky enough to get out, Sam passed the bodies on the ground. The ones that weren't going to be getting up again. They found their freedom, but it meant death.
When one of the task masters talked on a cell phone in English and explained the situation, Sam knew that Davies must be on his way over. His property had just been destroyed, and Sam couldn't shake the feeling that he was somehow the catalyst.
Whatever he felt snap in his head was far from natural.
14710 didn't seem to mind keeping him upright. He would have been on the ground with the help. He struggled to keep up with the work during the morning with all of the injuries his body was trying to heal, and now there were only more from the fire and collapsing building.
Maybe he should have been thankful that 14710 saved his life, but it should have been Dean there holding him up when he was too weak to do it himself.
But Dean wasn't there, and he ached. Physically, and in a way that wasn't physical no matter how real it felt. It might have been the exhaustion taking over his mind, but he couldn't help thinking that he wished 14710 had left him behind.
After all, what did he have to look forward to in the life of a slave?
The ferry ride wasn't as bad as Dean thought it would be, and it was definitely better than the airplane (especially when he got to watch Caleb throw up over the side into the water).
The rock of the boat on the water was actually almost soothing, like being cradled. But guilt rose within him again when he remembered that Sam wasn't there to enjoy it with him. That Sam was suffering somewhere while Dean was comfortable and safe.
That it was Dean's fault that Sam was suffering.
Even though he didn't show it anymore, Dean suspected that this fact was still burned into his father's brain. No matter how disappointed John was in him, no one could punish Dean more than he was already punishing himself.
He just hoped that it would be over soon and they'd have Sam with them. He longed for the chance to make things right and fix his mistakes by fixing Sam, no matter the shape in which they found him.
"So, now what?" Dean asked. As peaceful as the ferry ride had been, they had work to do.
"Both Davies and Liu own more than one location with the names that Jerry gave us. I guess we start with the closest ones and work our way through them," John said. "It's going to be impossible to guess which one Sam could be at, especially since two people have an equal chance of having him in their control."
"God, I hope it's Davies," Dean admitted. "It's horrible, I know, but it's the best of two bad scenarios."
John looked over his shoulder at Dean, but didn't respond. Not that he needed to. Dean saw the same wishes hidden in John's eyes. They needed to hope that Sam was still working at a factory because it was the only hope they had to latch onto.
Sam's memories beyond entering the lot behind the factory were hazy and jumbled into an incoherent mess.
He had been on a truck with other slaves. He swore that a hand had been running over his head at some point during the trip, trying to soothe him by petting him. The way Dean did sometimes. But it wasn't Dean. The hand was too small and not rough enough.
They let him lean against them without complaint, and he wondered if they pitied him or, like 14710, saw him help other slaves and helped him out in return in the only ways they could. It was a small kindness, but so long had passed since he last received any kindness that it left him a little uncomfortable. Embarrassed, almost.
He really hadn't done much to deserve it.
Then, he was laying in a room that looked more like an office than the slave bedrooms he'd grown accustomed to. The plastic leaves of an artificial plant loomed over him.
He couldn't keep his eyes open long enough to observe more than the plant, but he listened to someone speaking. Someone who sounded exactly like…
Davies.
"He's been nothing but trouble for me. Do you have any idea how much he's cost me so far, Liu?" he asked.
A pause.
Davies sighed. "How long will it take you to get here?"
"Fine, but if you're even an hour late I won't care about your protests. I'm selling one of the little bastard's kidneys, and anything else they'll take."
Sam knew that those words should have made him feel something, but he didn't. Not beyond numbing resignation and the lingering wish for fire to envelope him again. How natural it felt to be surrounded by the intense heat. The odd peace knowing that he would go the same way his mother had. That he would meet her and really get to know her in a way that he couldn't while Dean and John refused to talk about her.
Instead, he found himself swallowed in cold darkness.
Seeing the inside of the factory nearly made him sick. What made it worse was seeing the conditions that the kids were forced to live and work in, and to know that he couldn't help them if he wanted to help Sam.
It was John's plan, and as much as Dean wanted to blame him for not coming up with something that would save all of the kids held captive there, he understood why they couldn't. He did. He just hated seeing them and feeling the misery that rolled off of them. The silent acceptance in their eyes was worse still.
Yet not as bad as the thought that Sam was somewhere feeling the same way.
Dean wondered, not for the first time, if Sam felt abandoned by his family. He got through to Dean on a payphone in what felt like another life. Dean promised he would be there to pick him up.
He promised.
And then he never showed up and Sam was gone. He never showed up and Sam was shipped to the other side of the world.
He tried to keep the thoughts at bay for now and soundlessly moved through the factory to the location his dad specified they would group at. He hoped that John or Caleb had managed to draw out and subdue a task master, because Dean didn't get the chance. Not with the open areas he'd ended up assigned to scout out. Not with the sheer number of task masters in those areas watching the slaves like hawks, just waiting to dole out punishment.
Had they punished Sam?
Dean shook the thoughts off again. He found John and Caleb in a room filled with threadbare blankets lined up and flat pillows on top of them. Employee housing, he assumed.
Had Sam—
He focused on the man tied and gagged in the center of the room instead of on the possibilities that his mind was so helpfully spitting out at him.
Caleb held a gun to the man's head and cocked it. "We're gonna remove the gag, but if you scream or raise your voice to a level louder than we like, I'll shoot," he said. "Understand?"
The man nodded, his wide-eyed, frightened gaze alternating between the three of them.
John removed the gag and asked, "18166, does that number mean anything to you?"
Sam's number.
"No. No, I swear. None of the slaves here have that number," he said.
Dean had been pleasantly surprised to find that so many people in Hong Kong spoke English. Out of all of the barriers that could try keeping them from Sam, that was the one that he didn't have any idea of how to overcome.
Luckily, Caleb was good for research sometimes and informed Dean that English is one of the official languages of Hong Kong.
"Can you find out where a slave with that number was sent?" John asked.
The man shook his head. "You'd have to talk to Davies about that. He takes care of all slave movements. We just follow orders," he said. "That's it. It's just a job."
"Where is Davies?"
Dean was scared of the answer. What if Davies was in America and they wasted their time coming all the way to Hong Kong? What if Jerry and Rich lied about where Sam was?
"I don't know," he said. "He might be in Hong Kong at one of his other factories, he usually is when new slaves arrive to make sure everything goes smoothly, but I haven't seen him. He could be back in America by now."
"Can you find out with certainty where he is?" John asked.
The man shook his head. "No. I don't deal with him. Not really."
"Find us somebody who does," Caleb said. He pulled the gun away from the man's head. "But I swear to God, if you tell anyone we're here or try to rat us out, there will be a bullet in your skull and in the skulls of everyone you love."
Once the ties were removed from the man, with his agreement to the terms that he would not be revealing their presence, he rushed from the room.
"Little harsh, Caleb," Dean said, but the light-heartened teasing he meant to say it with died out before the words left his tongue.
Caleb shrugged. "Desperate times."
It was all too real. Seeing the factory and the kids there. The collars around their necks like they were animals. Dean was certain that they even had brands marring their skin.
It was too real that Sam could be in the same conditions at that moment. Maybe he even had a collar to match the rest of them and a brand marking him.
Maybe it was all a lot worse than Dean could have ever imagined.
Sam was in the same office when he woke up again. Only instead of a plant hovering over him, Davies sat in a chair nearby and stared down at him.
He noticed Sam's wakefulness before Sam could close his eyes and pretend that he was still asleep.
He didn't say anything, just stared. Silently assessing Sam. Looking for something, but Sam didn't know what. If it was a search for life-threatening injuries, Sam was pretty sure he didn't have any. He was banged up, no doubt, but not quite to the point of dying.
With his vague memories of listening to Davies say how much trouble he'd been, he doubted that Davies' would care much if he bled out on the floor of his office.
It'd give him the chance to harvest more organs without worrying about keeping his investment alive and able to work.
"What are you?" Davies asked, more to himself than to Sam.
What, not who. He still wasn't human, he reminded himself. He was uncertain if he had ever been human. He couldn't remember what it felt like anymore.
It was the first time he'd been directly addressed without being ordered around in a long time, but if Davies wanted Sam to answer, he would have deactivated the collar. Turned it off of automatic. But even if he had, Sam wasn't sure he had any words left to speak.
"One of my task masters is horrified of you. He says you're some sort of vengeful spirit come to punish us. He quit," Davies said. "He said the fire spread from you, but the fire department wrote it off as an electrical fire from old wiring. That it was just waiting to happen."
Knowing that his fears were shared by someone else brought relief and dread. He was pretty sure that he wasn't any sort of vengeful spirit, unless he died without realizing it between being snatched from his bed and now. But he was also pretty sure that the fire had spread from him. He felt something snap in his head, something unnatural. Then, being in the fire felt so natural. It felt right.
His mom died in a fire. His life began with fire, shouldn't it end that way too?
Maybe the pain and blood loss from the past few days was just messing with him. That the fire department was right and it was just an ordinary electrical fire in a building overdue for one.
"I can't wait to take what I need from you and be done with it. Leave your gutted body on the side of the road. Your organs are the only good things left about you."
Try as he might, he couldn't start another fire in that little office. As much as he wanted Davies to burn, he stayed perfectly unharmed.
Davies continued to stare at him, like he was trying to solve a puzzle but some of the pieces were missing, until the door opened.
Sam couldn't turn his head far enough to see who entered, but he knew the voice when he heard it.
"Not even a second late. I suppose you'll have to hold off on your hasty organ harvesting."
Liu.
The task master returned about an hour later. Dean figured that he would make a run for it, but was glad when he returned. He just wanted answers. He wanted to know where Sam was.
The task master shut the door behind them, closing the four of them within the privacy of a makeshift bedroom.
"I tell you, I get to leave?" he asked. "Uninjured?"
They all nodded. Dean begrudgingly, but he reminded himself that this man hadn't come across Sam. That he hadn't hurt the single most important person in his life.
"It isn't certain, but Davies might be headed to the North Factory. There are a lot of rumors that something happened there. Something bad enough to draw him over to deal with it."
"Write down the directions, and then this never happened. We never met you. You never met us," John said.
The task master was enthusiastic to agree to the conditions, wrote down the directions, and left in a rush. Left before anyone changed their mind.
"I guess we better get moving," Dean said. "Shouldn't take that long, right? We could have Sam back by tonight, couldn't we?"
"I don't know, Dean," John said.
John had a guarded optimism about him, and Caleb seemed to as well. But they were all hunters. They knew that anything could happen. Anything could throw them off the trail and put them back at square one at any second.
And Dean knew he shouldn't be getting his hopes up that it would by that easy, but they were so close. They were so close to Sam, that he might get to see him again before nightfall.
And he would never let him out of sight again.
Liu stepped into his line of sight, looming next to Davies in a suit perfectly tailored and sharply cut.
"He isn't worth it," Davies said. "If I keep him around, he's just going to keep costing me more and more."
"I'll take him," Liu said simply. "But I need him to be fit, not recovering from a kidney removal."
Liu threw a glare at Davies, but Davies didn't bother to glance up and see it.
"Seventy thousand dollars, Liu. Plus whatever he's cost me in product and now my factory is in shambles. And it all happened after he arrived there," Davies said. "That's a lot of money he's cost me, and I need it back."
"I'll cover the costs," Liu said. "You wanted to keep him from Williams, and you did. I'll pay for full ownership of him, and you get your money back and him out of your hair. It's a good deal."
"You'll pay for the reconstruction of my factory?" Davies asked. "Plus the seventy thousand I originally paid for him?"
Sam hoped that Liu would say no. That Liu would change his mind because the price was too high just for him. But to Sam's horror, Liu nodded. He nodded like Davies' words were the most sensible he'd ever heard.
"I will."
"Then, he's yours. Completely. Get him out of my hair by tonight," Davies said.
Liu nodded and shifted towards the door, when Davies stopped him.
"Why are you willing to pay so much for a single, troublesome slave?" Davies asked.
"With the stories your task masters tell about him, he'll be worth every cent I pay for him. Worth tenfold, actually. He might not fit into your business, but he's perfect for mine."
Davies just nodded.
Sam felt like ice filled his organs, chipping off and running through his veins. Images of shadowy nightclubs reeking of alcohol, cheap perfumes and colognes, cigarette smoke, and sweat flashed through his mind. Clips of electronic music too loud to hear anything over. Hidden backrooms with drowned out screams and sobs masking the quieter moans.
Himself, among all of it.
Liu grinned down at him, unsettling and dark (more of a leer than a grin), before he left the room.
Sam couldn't breath. His lungs refused to allow air in.
What he feared the most just became his reality.
He was Liu's.
Author's Note: Oh my, so much going on. Liu finally has what he wants, and it's Sam's greatest nightmare. Dean, John, and Caleb are on an ever shortening timeline.
And you'll have to stay tuned to find out what happens next!
Thank you to everyone who reads, follows, favorites, and especially reviews. Please take a moment before you go to let me know your thoughts!