Thinking I'd heard something, I roused myself from my dozing in time to see Eric at the table, raising a bucket.
"No time for sleeping!" He yells, and dumps the bucket, containing ice water, all over Dean. Dean gasped awake, jerking against all the restraints, grimacing at the pain I'm sure that movement caused. "We have much more to discuss!" He wandered past the cart, picking up a short thin leather strap as he passed. What new torture did he have in mind for Dean now? Where was Sam?
Eric stopped at the foot of the table. "You know, Dean, I've talked so much about my family, and their indiscriminate slaughter, that we've spent no time talking about yours. You are quite loyal to your family aren't you? Well, what family you have left."
He walked around toward me and fiddled with the strap in his hand. "You wouldn't want any of your family to get hurt, would you, Dean?" He looked at me with a knowing glance. He was up to something. He continued on past me.
"Poor Dean, here, lost his mommy at the young age of four. Demon burned her on the ceiling of little Sammy's nursery. Did you know that, Benjamin? He lost his father to a demon about 20 years later, give or take. Demon's have been plaguing Sam almost since the day he was born." He leaned over Dean, who was beginning to shiver.
"I wonder, then, how you could ever have worked in league with them at all! Yet, all evidence shows that the two of you have done so on numerous occasions! How is it, that the mighty hunter turns a blind eye to some and yet slaughters so many others for lesser offenses?"
Dean's teeth were beginning to chatter and his whole body was shivering as much as the restraints would allow. He managed a reply, though. "You forgot about Adam, my half-brother, that your bastard offspring killed."
Eric looked directly at me and said, "Oh, Adam isn't the only one I haven't mentioned."
He walked back around toward me and stood between Dean and I. "You seem to be overly protective of your younger brother, Dean. Is it because you think he's all the family you have left? It's a rather unhealthy relationship the two of you have."
"He is the only family I have left." Dean chattered.
"Really? I so wanted to have Sam here to witness your punishment. Physical torture for you, psychological scars for him...but we'll settle for Ben here. So who's Lisa?"
Shit. How does this freak know about my mother? Where's he going with this?
"Lisa who?"
"Hmm. Dean, have you ever heard of bastinado?" Eric went again to the foot of the table.
"What you do with goats in your spare time is your own business." Dean replied.
Eric laughed, stood off to the side and hit the sole of Dean's right foot with the leather strap. At first, Dean did his stoic, non responsive, thing. But Eric just kept hitting his foot and the lines on Dean's face got deeper. He started to grimace more and more with each hit.
"Bastinado, simply, is foot whipping." Eric spoke as he continued to hit Dean's foot. "There is a lovely bundle of nerves down here in your foot and with each hit the pain grows more intense. Soon it'll start burning right up through your whole body. What's nice, is, it takes very little effort from me."
Dean was starting to grunt and gasp with each hit. He started struggling against his bonds. Occasionally, he would arch his back in pain. Tears were coming, unbidden, from his eyes, streaming down his cheeks, toward his ears.
Eric stopped. "Who's Lisa, Dean? ...No answer? The anticipation of the next strike is almost as bad as the strike itself, don't you think?" Eric hit Dean's foot and he cried out.
"Who's Lisa, Dean? It's a simple question."
"Just a girl I had a fling with decades ago. She doesn't even remember who I am!"
Between the ice cubes, that were finally beginning to melt off, and the whipping, Dean was a mess. Eric struck again, again Dean cried out, back arching in pain.
"Would you feel bad if something happened to her? Even if she doesn't even remember who you are?" Again striking his foot.
No answer. Another whip of the foot.
"Would you feel bad?" Strike.
Dean was panting, "Yes, damn it!"
"Why?" No answer from Dean, another strike to his foot.
"Because I still care, you son of a bitch!"
"Now, was that so hard?"
Strike. Scream.
"So how would you feel if, say, something were to happen to her son?"
Strike. Scream.
"Touch him and I swear to God, they'll be picking your brain matter off these walls with tweezers!"
"Ever the fighter, aren't you, Dean? It makes this so much more satisfying."
Strike. Scream.
I could barely take it anymore when Eric suddenly came around toward me and back handed me across the face. My head whipped around, wrenching my neck in the process. For such a trim guy, he had a powerful hit.
"You son of bitch! Don't you touch him!" Dean yelled.
Eric back handed me again and already I was seeing spots. I could taste blood in my mouth and he had split my lip. I shook my head, trying to clear it. And again, he hit me. I tried to wrestle free of my bonds, but that wasn't happening. I was beginning to see double. This guy hit like a ton of bricks! Dean was freaking out. Yelling incoherently and struggling against the restraints again. Eric walked back and struck Dean's foot again, eliciting another scream.
"My goodness, Dean. All this over a kid who you spent only a year with?"
Strike. Scream.
"I can't imagine how you would react if I were to, say, beat your son..."
There it was. The sentence just hung there. Aside from Dean's panting, there wasn't a sound in the room.
Finally Dean spoke. "I don't have a son, but nice try."
"Really?"
Strike. Scream.
"Well, then, I'm really curious to see how you would react when I actually do beat your son. So...let me beat him and see?"
He came back over and full on punched me with one mother of a right hook. I thought Dean had a nasty punch. If I weren't tied to the chair, I think he would have knocked me right out of it. He followed it with a punch to my gut. The air wooshed out of me and I doubled over, gagging, trying to breath. He grabbed my hair and yanked my head up.
"No...no, no..." Dean was shocked and the disbelief was evident in his voice.
"What's that Dean? I didn't hear you. Could you hear your old man, Ben? I don't think your son heard you, Dean. Speak up!"
He went over and struck Dean's foot again. Dean's scream hadn't even faded from the room and he was hitting me in the face again.
"This is priceless! You didn't even know, did you, Dean?" He punched me in the face again. I could already feel my left eye swelling shut. It burned from the blood and sweat getting into it.
"You're lying just to get into my head. How do you know this?" Dean asked.
"Oh, Ben, one shouldn't keep secrets. But, maybe that just runs in the family!" He laughed like he had gone round the bend, bat shit crazy. He hit me several more times and then turned to Dean.
"That's what brought Ben out here, you fool! I did some research of my own, while you were in here napping. I don't know what story he fed you, but he found you via DNA match. Congratulations! You're a father!" He had a huge shit eating grin on his face and looked at Dean, to me, and back again. I have no idea how he found all of this out and I hoped Amber was okay.
"Ben, tell him." Eric said.
When I remained silent, he hit me again.
"Ben?" Dean asked.
"Yes! Okay? It's true." This was so not the way I wanted him to learn the truth.
Eric sighed with satisfaction. "You know what would make this so much more psychologically traumatic for young Ben here?" He went around to the cart and grabbed a knife. He then went to one of the gashes he had cut into Dean's chest and cut a chunk of skin off. Dean screamed. He was all out of bravado, I think. Eric dangled the piece of flesh he had just removed above his mouth. "Down the hatch!" He chewed it and ooo'd and ahhh'd as if he were eating the finest steak. I almost tossed my cookies, right there.
"Don't you dare, you son of a bitch." Dean was yanking at his restraints again. He had done so to the point that I could see blood around his wrist and ankle.
Eric smiled at me across the table and the air rippled around him. I don't know how else to explain it. When it was done, he looked just like Dean.
"How'd you do that?" I asked, appalled and fascinated all at the same time.
Dean answered. "Ghouls can take on the form and memories of their last meal. I'm guessing, since he's an alpha, he doesn't need to eat much to accomplish the same feat."
"Oh, Dean. What a dark, dark place, your mind is. Full of self-loathing and guilt. How do you make it through the day without putting a bullet through your head? Oh … right, Sammy. Ah! And now Ben. How touching..."
He went down and struck Dean's foot a few more times, bringing fresh tears and screams from him.
"So, Ben, you've been a bad boy and now papa's gotta give you a whoopin'."
He was enjoying this entirely too much. It was uncanny how he even sounded exactly like Dean.
"Don't you touch him!"
"Oh, I won't! But you will..." And he laid into me again. My left ear was ringing. I couldn't even see out of my left eye anymore. He rained down punches to my body as well.
"Kill me!" Dean suddenly cried out.
Eric stopped and looked over. "What's this?"
"Kill me. It's why you went after me in the first place, isn't it? Well let's get it over with already. Enough with the dicking around!"
"Oh, always the sacrificial one, eh? But you use the term 'sacrifice' to justify your own selfishness. If I were to kill you now, you wouldn't have to watch me beat your son to within an inch of his life. That's awfully selfish, Dean. Awfully, awfully selfish."
Eric went down and began striking Dean's foot again. I thought I might just go mad, listening to him screaming.