Broken and stained tiles decorated the lobby walls. The concrete floor must have soaked up vast quantities of urine and vomit over the years; the acrid smell permeated the small space like mustard gas. The ground floor lobby was just wide enough to house a staircase and two elevators. One of the elevators had a magnetic 'Out of Order' sign stuck onto a door, and yellow DO NOT USE tape covered the call button. Bill lifted the tape out of the way and pressed the button. The doors opened immediately.
"Private lift…goes straight to the penthouse" he chuckled. He stepped inside, and motioned for Sam and Lara to follow, with Archie and Bill's mini-clone squeezing in behind them. It was a tight fit; the small elevator just about allowed all five of them inside with no personal space to spare. Sam guided Lara into a corner, and shielded her as best he could so that none of their captors would be able to press up against her. Captain America he wasn't. Attempting to take out three armed men in an elevator whilst handcuffed to a terrified civilian would not work out well for either of them.
Bill pressed button 15, and the elevator slowly creaked and groaned upwards. It was claustrophobic to say the least, and the maybe fifty seconds they spent trapped together in that warm box stretched on for an eternity. Sam could smell his own sweat, as well as the other men around him. Lara kept her eyes closed during the ride up. Finally, the elevator gave a lurching judder, before coming to a stop. The doors opened and the last two men in were the first two out, heading right, followed by Sam, Lara and Bill. As soon as they were out of the elevator, Archie lit up a cigarette and sucked on it so deeply, his cheeks collapsed inwards like an inverse cartoon chipmonk. Sam had never seen anyone so desperate for a cigarette. Bill shot Archie a filthy look and Archie hurried forwards, keeping the smoke away from Bill.
There was a wide window just outside the elevator area. The view of the city at this height was breath-taking. Although Sam worked on the 18th floor at Canary Wharf, his work area was at the core of the building so he didn't get to see much of a view. Here, a bright sunny London stretched out for miles ahead, busses and cars looking like miniature toys far below. Lara had also stopped by the window and only moved away when Sam reluctantly pulled her onwards.
Passing through the corridor, dirt and grit crunched underfoot. Three doorframes had no doors hanging in them at all, giving Sam a brief glimpse of dark, unlived in rooms as they walked past. The fourth doorway, however, had a proper door; dark blue wood with the number 154 crudely brushed on in white paint. It opened just as they approached and a skinny teenage boy stepped back to let them all in. Mini-clone gave the kid's slicked-back hair a ruffle as they walked past him and the boy scowled and whined "fuck off Gavin". Mini-clone – Gavin – laughed and pretended to punch the boy in the stomach. "Stick the kettle on Alfie" he said, as he closed the front door behind him with the sole of his boot.
The narrow hallway opened up into a compact open plan kitchen and living room. The flat looked exactly as unloved as Sam had expected; this was no one's home – just a temporary residing place. A large stained sofa took up most of one wall, with a 50 inch TV taking up most of another. Sky Sports was showing a replay of last night's Premier League match. A couple of miss-matched chairs were scattered around with ash trays, beer cans and take out cartons littering the floor. No windows were open, the heavy green curtains were firmly closed and the room smelled of cigarettes, sweat and stale booze.
Archie smiled toothily and held out a hand. "Phones please…wallets an' that too." His voice was rough. "And your handbag, love." Small mercies – Sam and Lara weren't invited to sit on the dodgy sofa – as soon as they had handed over their worldly goods to Archie, they were led onwards by Bill.
Leading off the living room was another hallway with three doors. The first was a bathroom that looked – and smelled – like it got a hammering from guys who only drank beer and ate takeout, and had never picked up a bottle of disinfectant in their lives.
A second door revealed a bedroom with nothing in it but a single bed and sleeping bag. It looked like the kind of room where the guys might take it in turn to sleep.
The third door had all kinds of locks and bolts attached to it, and Bill motioned for Sam and Lara to step inside. Maybe 20 feet square, it wasn't as small as Sam was expecting. Lit by a single bare lightbulb hanging down from the ceiling, the glass windows had been removed and replaced with plywood, making the room dark and fairly cold. Wind whistled in through the gaps. The floor was carpeted, but probably about fifteen years ago. The entire flat, including this room didn't appear to have ever been vacuumed. To their right, just behind them was a kind of en-suite. It was more like a door-less cupboard with a toilet and small sink. A couple of Morrison's plastic bags were propped up in the far left hand corner of the bedroom, stuffed with what looked like cheap snacks. In front of them and slightly to their right, a double mattress lay on the floor and just above it, a horizontal chrome rail was bolted to the wall. That's when Lara freaked out.
Sam didn't blame her. Bill, however, had no sympathy. As Lara started to back out of the room, swearing and flailing her uncuffed arm around, Bill grabbed her wrist and twisted it back, forcing her to her knees. He grabbed her by the hair and shouted directly into her face, spittle flying. "CALM THE FUCK DOWN OR I'LL REALLY GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO SCREAM ABOUT." His face was red, and his eyes were screwed up in anger. A vein pulsed rapidly near the top of his bald head. Without hesitation, Sam reached down and, with his left arm, pulled Lara back slightly, placing as much of himself as he could between them. Bill let go of Lara's hair, so Sam dragged her back further, until she was resting against a wall, hyperventilating and crying.
He turned to face Bill, mirroring his angry expression. "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? Can't you see she's terrified? Let's get one thing clear right now – if you hurt touch her again, you and I are going to have a SERIOUS problem." Bill could obviously tell he meant it, and Sam could see him weighing up which way to go. Unfortunately, the decision wasn't particularly great. Bill punched Sam in the face, hard. It split his lip and knocked his head backwards into Lara's face. Bill reached under Sam's dripping chin, and grabbed his jaw, turning Sam's head to face his. "My question to you, Sam, is why aren't YOU terrified? I've brought a fuck-load of people up to the pleasuredome and even the biggest and strongest of men have been shit scared. But you? You act like this is any old Thursday. I don't know what's going on with you Sunshine, but I'll get to the bottom of it…I got time."
Sam was breathing angrily out of his nose as his mouth filled up with blood from the cut lip. He debated about whether to spit it onto Bill, but decided against antagonising him further. He didn't want Bill taking anything out on Lara. He just stared hard at Bill instead, until he let go of Sam's jaw. Sam turned and spat on the floor.
It was a long, tense moment. It's not that Sam wasn't scared, it was just that he'd been in many, many worse situations than this. It was all relative. Which was very fucked up. Bill's surprise at Sam's calm demeanour meant he can't have known his background, which made the situation more bizarre. Why would someone kidnap Sam Winchester if they didn't know who he was?
Manliness confidently reasserted, Bill got up, knees creaking, and headed toward the door. "I'm going to have my tea. Be back in a bit. In the meantime, you two enjoy your stay". The door closed softly, bolts thudding shut from the outside.
Three-quarters of the tension in the room left when Bill did. Sam brought up his left coat sleeve up to the cut on his lip, and studied Lara as he gingerly dabbed at it. Her right cheekbone was puffy from Sam's accidental headbutt. "Can you get up, come into the bathroom?" He asked. "I want to get something cold on your face, help with the swelling."
"He's right you know." Her eyes were wet, but she had stopped crying. She seemed calmer. It must have been a huge relief that Bill had left them alone, and that she wasn't chained up to the wall.
"What?" Sam asked. "How?"
"Why ARE you so calm? Has something like this happened to you before?"
Sam took a moment to answer. The room was cold and the sweat on his back was drying fast. He was now glad the overcoat had stayed on. He sat down beside her, back against the wall.
"Honestly? Yes, I've been in this kind of…situation before. More than once." He glanced around the room checking for cameras, but didn't see anything obvious. He did, however, notice another scuffed chrome bar attached to the ceiling above them. "My life has been…we'll call it, um…'interesting'. Yeah, interesting." He lifted his cuffed right hand up and rubbed at the scars on his left hand. The old one on his palm, and the newer ones on the back of his fingers.
Lara pursed her lips, but didn't pull her hand back. "I think I deserve slightly more of an explanation than 'interesting'."
"Yes, you do." He nodded, and a lock of hair fell in front of his face. He shook it away. "I'll tell you everything you want to know, even though you won't believe me – but not until I know for sure that no-one else is listening."
"Are you like, some kind of spy? Or a hit-man?"
Sam laughed, genuinely and loudly. The adrenaline rush was beginning to wear off and the shakes would set in soon. For both of them.
"Sorry…I'm not laughing at you Lara. That's…that's just funny. I'm not a spy, I promise. Not a hit man either. I'm just an ordinary guy but…well, I haven't exactly led an ordinary life. Like, ever." Sam turned serious. "But I left all that behind me. At least, I thought I had. I was done with all that, totally and utterly done." The brief humor had left him, replaced by waves of sadness.
They sat silently for a while, listening to the wind howl against the makeshift windows. The blood dripping from his lip had slowed down, but his grey coat was now completely ruined.
Lara shifted uneasily, and gave a quiet cough, pulling Sam out of a long-ago memory of a day at Skull Cemetery.
"Sam? Shit…Sam, I really need to erm…"
"What?" Sam looked at her concerned.
Lara gave a small huff. "…I need to have a wee."
Sam blushed. "Oh! Ok…" He stood, and held a hand out to Lara to escort her up.
She stretched out her cramped legs and stepped hesitantly towards the tiny bathroom. "I don't know how the hell I'm gonna do this with one hand." She looked up embarrassed.
"I won't look, I swear it." Sam was just as uncomfortable. He stood as far around the corner of the wall as their handcuffs would allow and tried to ignore it when his fingers accidentally brushed against her bare skin by accident as she shuffled and squirmed in the small room. Being cuffed right hand to right hand, whilst wearing heavy winter coats turned every action into a major challenge.
"At least there's toilet roll!" She called out, with false cheer. Since being left alone – and out of Bill's company - some of the Lara he recognised began to surface. Awkwardly she finished up then flushed. Sam waited until she pulled her trousers back up before moving away from the wall so she could wash her hands.
"Hey Lara…whilst we are here…I may as well go too." They traded places and Sam finished up as quickly as he could.
With that out of the way, Sam wadded up two lots of toilet paper and ran it under the cold faucet. He gave one to Lara to press to her cheek, and used the other on his lip. They walked around the surprisingly clean-ish mattress (only one or two stains, Sam noted), and rummaged through the supermarket shopping bags. Looking at the food they had been provided with Sam hoped their stay wasn't going to be a long one – there was nothing but potato chips, protein bars and candy in the bags.
"No way can I face anything at the moment, but I always said I could live on nothing but chocolate." Lara half-joked.
Sam then spent fifteen minutes (with Lara forced to follow along), walking around the room, studying everything he could. The door was firmly locked, and the plyboard over the windows was secure. They were fifteen floors up, anyhow, so it wasn't like they could slip out of the window. He checked everywhere he could reach for cameras or microphones, but couldn't see any obvious ones. Most importantly though, there was no sign of any angel warding. He rubbed at his belly and wondered what he could use to obliterate the sigil on his stomach. He needed something sharp that could cut through his scar tissue.
He went back through the room again, this time looking closely for anything that would do the job. Old rusty metal wasn't exactly ideal for cutting yourself, but Sam puffed his cheeks out with relief when he found a nail that wasn't too firmly fixed against the boarded-up window. He worked at it for five minutes before it came free, then shoved it into his trouser pocket. It was thin enough that he could have used it to release their handcuffs, but he didn't want to alert Bill to anything suspicious just yet.
Sam was growing increasingly certain that Bill and his crew weren't clued up about Winchester history, or the supernatural world. If that was the case, then Sam definitely had an advantage over them. When the time was right, and if he couldn't get them out of this on his own, he would call Castiel. Imagine Bill coming face to face with a pissed off Angel! With his short fuse and probable high blood pressure, he would probably stroke out in shock.
Cas wasn't the type to hold a grudge but Sam felt shitty at the way he had dismissed his friend the last time they spoke, only to now reach out to him for help. He felt guilty at the thought of using his friend that way. And if Cas did come to their rescue, would he bring Dean with him? The thought was enough to bring Sam out into a cold sweat. He wasn't ready to face Dean, in fact - he wasn't sure he would ever be ready to face him again. He hadn't forgiven him. Would never forgive him.
No, calling Cas would be a last resort, and even then only to keep Lara safe. She was priority one. Talking to Bill, finding out exactly who he was and what he wanted was priority two. Anything else was too far down the list to worry about right now.
Neither of them wanted to go near the mattress, so they sat back down on the floor by the bathroom. With nothing to do, nervous energy began to creep back in. Sam looked at his watch and was surprised to see it was still early – not even lunch time yet.
"Lara, I need to ask. How long before anyone notices you're missing? And how long before they might call the police?"
"They already know I'm missing." She breathed out heavily. "My manager knows the only way I would have missed this morning's meeting was if something pretty fucking catastrophic had happened. My phone's on silent but I bet I have at least twenty missed calls on it."
Sam turned to face her, hope in his eyes. "Well that's great! If the cops trace your phone they'll know where to find you! It was still on when we got here, and they may be able to find its last location even if that Archie guy switches it off."
"It depends if they do call the police straight away. Samantha, my manager, might send someone over to my flat first to see if I'm ok. She's not just my manager, she's a friend and she'd want to check on me. I don't think she'll report me missing until she's spoken to a few of our other friends, and then maybe my parents." She looked at him. "She might even call my Ex."
He kept his voice steady. "Ex?"
"Yeah. James. We broke up about a month ago. We were together for quite a while and tho' Samantha knows there's no chance I'll get back with him, she might ring him anyway. They're friends – its kinda how we met."
"Why did you break up?"
"Whooo – long story." She stretched out her legs and waggled her feet in a circular motion, trying to get the blood flowing. "Short version is, I wanted to get more serious, he didn't. My mum keeps on nagging me to settle down, have kids and all that. I thought maybe James might be the one. But no – he's thirty on the outside, thirteen on the inside. Anyway, changing the subject - what about you, Sam?"
"Are you asking me if I'm with someone, or if someone's gonna report me missing…?"
"Um…both? No. No, I'm asking if someone will report you missing…"
"It's no to both questions. I've not been in my job long enough for anyone to notice me missing. I've only been in the UK a couple of months, and haven't really made any proper friends yet. Maybe the barman at my local might notice I'm not around, but that's about it."
Lara began to fidget. "So what you're saying is, we are kind of fucked. That we are going to be here all day…all night even?" She looked at him wretchedly, tears suddenly springing into her eyes. "I don't want to be here Sam. I'm..I'm scared and I want to go home."
Sam's heart lurched; he wanted so desperately to help her. He was immediately appalled at how selfish he was being by not calling Cas straight away to get her rescued. Just because Bill had left them alone for the moment, didn't mean he wouldn't be coming back…and soon. That bar next to the bed was there for a reason.
Fuck this shit; Sam decided to get that nail out of his pocket now.
And with the terrible, awful luck that had screwed up so much of Sam's life, Bill chose that moment to throw back the bolts and saunter into the room.
Long chapter this – so flashback to follow in the next chapter.
