Chapter 21

Dean

I woke up lying across Serra's hip, my hands cuffed to her booted ankles. The pain shooting across my scalp told me that I had gone soft in my old age and let my guard down. Glancing around the dark room, I could see supplies in boxes, lined up against the back walls. There was a steady drip from somewhere off to the left and from the sound of things, we had been unceremoniously dumped behind a set of crates, hidden from curious eyes.

I stared at my wrists and shook my head. The bastard had used both of my sets of handcuffs. Turning my head as far as it would go, I tried to see if Serra was conscious. "Sere," I whispered. "Serra." She still didn't move and a dull ache of panic tried to roll through me. "Serendipity, wake up," I said a bit louder. "Asshat clocked me good. You can shoot him now."

Serra's legs moved slightly and my hands were pulled along with her feet. I tried to see her face, but it was an awkward angle and the most I could see was her hair, splayed along the ground as if Gerardo threw her to the floor. Rage began to boil in me, knowing that she probably fought back as much as she had been able to, but he had probably overpowered her quickly, catching her off guard and hitting her hard enough to knock her down.

"Come on, Luck. Your sister is going to kill me for getting us into this." I tried moving my hands again and knew it was no use, considering there were two sets of cuffs that had been locked together around her ankles and my wrists. I made the move to sit up slowly, but realized that Serra's wrists were locked together with one of my ankles. This was possibly the most inconvenient and well thought-out way to restrain someone.

Serra moved a bit again and I brought my head up enough to make eye contact with her. There was a bruise blossoming across her face and blood trickled from her bottom lip. "What the fuck?" she asked, whispering. "How are you attached to me?"

"He used every set of cuffs we had to attach us to each other. My wrists to your ankles and vice versa." I gave up trying to hold my head up at the awkward angle and rested across her hip again. "It's actually pretty clever."

"Clever? You're complimenting the fat-sucking monster that knocked us out?"

I tried to shrug. "I know, I know," I sighed. "For what it's worth, I don't think Gerardo is the one that got the drop on us."

"What?"

"I think there are two." Serra shifted under me and I tried to lift myself from her hip, sitting up slightly. "A female, too. I think she's the one that knocked me out."

Serra laughed mockingly. "Don't let that get out."

Rolling my eyes, I stared at the ceiling as I replied, "I think you and your sister are living proof that the fairer sex isn't necessarily the weaker one."

"Thank you for being so full of gender impartiality." Serra sighed and tried to roll to her back, dragging me across her body.

I couldn't help but laugh at our positions, with my head and arms now resting on her thighs and her head peeking around my knee. "Sere, why don't you roll back this way so at least you're laying on top of me and I don't squish you."

She just sounded irritated. "If Sam doesn't squish me, you won't either," she sighed.

I closed my eyes, shaking the vision from my mind. "Don't…don't say shit like that. I'm a very visual person." Glancing up at her ankles, I wondered if I could get her boots off with the handcuffs around the ankle. "Roll with me, Serra. I'm gonna try to take your boot off."

She winked at me and kissed at the air. "I love when you talk dirty," she said, grunting slightly against the cold cement floor as she tried lifting herself up on her elbows.

I pulled at her boot without unzipping it and I could hear her chuckle under my weight. "You've got to be kidding me," she muttered. "You have to unzip it or you're never going to get it off." I glanced back at her and shook my head at her. Continuing with a sarcastic tone, Serra said, "Grace is always going on about how seductive you are. I figured that meant you knew how to undo a zipper."

"Jesus, do you ever shut up?" I sighed, working the zipper to her boot down and gently working the handcuff over the leather, trying to separate the two. I adjusted my position slightly and now we were stomach to stomach. I could feel her muscles flex under me, supporting my weight the best that her small frame would allow.

"Nope," she replied, shaking her head. "It's one of my better attributes."

"According to who?" I asked, still focused on pulling the handcuff from her boot and working it off a little at a time.

"Grace. She always said I could talk my way out of anything."

"Can you talk your way out of these cuffs?"

She clicked her tongue and tried to take a deep breath. Using my elbows, I lifted up a bit so she could breathe. "I am right now, aren't I?"

Surprisingly, I managed to tug Serra's boot off successfully and I dropped it, moving on to the handcuff that was now around her lower calf. I hoped that it was open wide enough to get her foot through. "Hold still," I pleaded and Serra steadied her feet, waiting for me to continue. I moved the handcuff lower towards her heel, but heard the squeak of a door opening and closing, freezing me in place.

Glancing back at Serra, I knew she heard it too, and automatically, we rolled together, putting ourselves back into the positions we had been dumped in. I grabbed her boot and laid it across her foot, hiding the fact that we were about half way through escaping, and closed my eyes, resting my head against Serra's hip once more. Straining, I could hear voices speaking in hushed tones from the floor above us.

"We cannot feed on them," a female voice was saying. "We know nothing about them. If they are a part of the government, as they say they are, there will be hundreds more to follow, looking for them."

A male's voice followed next. I recognized it at Gerardo's. "They are not government agents. The woman carried weapons I do not recognize. This blade…it's triangular, and this?" There was a brief pause as I was sure he held up one of Serra's many knives. "This is not made of a metal I recognize."

"Asshole took my weapons," Serra whispered. I shushed her and tried to listen for movement. The couple continued to argue as Serra's body tensed under mine. I tried to glance at her, but the handcuffs cut into my wrists as I tried to move.

"What?" I hissed towards her.

"Grace." Her one worded answer told me that she and my wife were once again, engaged in a telepathic conversation and, once again, I was incredibly grateful that Grace was half-angel.

Gerardo and his companion moved away from the doorway and their voices became harder to hear. There was a hiss of air from above as the heater kicked on and began to flood the room with warm air from the vents all around the basement. I adjusted my position to see the stream of light from the door at the top of the steps disappear and I turned to Serra in time to see worry flash through her hazel eyes.

"Oh, awesome," I muttered, realizing that the vents were pumping in some sort of noxious fumes that smelled awful. "They're going to kill us with, what?" I asked, "Chemicals?"

"The alarm company shares a lease with an extermination business," Serra sighed, shaking her head. "That's really chicken shit." Immediately I went back to work on getting her foot out of our handcuffs. "What," she continued as I worked, "they kill us and stash us somewhere so they don't draw attention to themselves? What kind of monsters are they?"

Shaking my head, I could feel the fumes begin to affect my hand/eye coordination. I felt sloppy. "They're fucking lazy," I slurred. Finally, Serra's foot was free and I was able to untangle my handcuffs from her feet and sit up completely. My head and back were killing me, but I didn't have the time to think about that now.

"Gimme your hands," I said, reaching for her wrists. "I think I can unlock them with this." I pulled an old bobby pin out of my coat sleeve and gestured to Serra as she lay on the cold cement. My fingers felt bigger than they were and I fumbled to hold onto the pin. I glanced up long enough to notice that the fumes were so thick in the basement that it almost looked foggy. "Stay awake, Serra," I muttered, knowing that it would take less time for Serra to pass out than me, just based on her size. I reached for her flannel and pulled it up over her mouth and nose. "Focus on staying awake. If we can get un…un…apart, we can break that…" I shook my head to clear my thoughts. "The glass thing. We can break the glass."

"Break the glass," Serra repeated, her eyelids drooping.

I struggled with the pin and the cuffs, feeling like I could quite possibly be locking them more, but I fought the drowsiness as best I could. "What did Grace say?"

"She comin'," Serra replied, sounding drunk. "She comin' with Cas."

"Now would be a good time for them to show up," I mumbled, mostly to myself. The handcuffs clicked again and I knew I wouldn't be able to unlock them with the pin. I was a pro at cuffs when my senses weren't ridiculously dulled, but right now, I felt like I was underwater and everything was moving at an exaggeratingly slow pace.

Pulling my own undershirt up and over my face, trying to filter the gas as much as I could, I refocused enough to try again with the bobby pin. "Just stay awake, Luck. Grace'll be here and she and Cas can, you know…" I paused, trying my hardest not to take a deep breath. "They'll just bamf us home."

Serra murmured in response, slipping closer and closer in to oblivion and I knew I should be worried, but my senses were too dull to care. I dropped the bobby pin again and slumped, slowly lying back down against Serra's hip and somewhere, deep in my subconscious, I thought I recognized my wife's voice.