A/N: Okay, this chapter is really dark and kinda disturbing, so fair warning. Sorry it's a day late, but review and tell me you forgive me?
As Always,
EverReader
Prisoner of War- Chapter Thirteen
"Facing Your Fears"
Disclaimer: Not my sandbox
Dean looked around the motel room with tired amazement.
"Dude, did you get any sleep at all while I was at the library?" He muttered incredulously.
Sam shrugged tiredly, looking around at all the files he had pinned up on the walls.
"I couldn't sleep." He offered, finally, and Dean grimaced, rubbing his aching head. Though Sam refused to talk about it, Dean knew Sam was having nightmares.
Dean set the gear down carefully, before going over to the first aid kit, rummaging around for some pain killers. Tossing back two, he then threw the bottle to Sam, along with Sam's bottle of antibiotics. He noticed Sam was careful not to jostle his left shoulder.
"Let's get your shirt off." Dean said, reaching for Sam to help him wrangle his shirt over his head.
"Dude." Sam said, moving out of arm's reach.
Dean scowled. "Whatever, Sam, just get it off already." He scolded, tired of Sam's antics.
Sam's movements were so slow it made Dean clench his teeth in frustration, so to distract himself from his stubborn little brother, he studied the work Sam had done while Dean was at the library. Sam had done an amazing job, Dean admitted to himself, feeling a little mortified that he hadn't thought of it himself. He'd been preoccupied with Sam's illness, though he wasn't sure why John hadn't done it either, since that was where Sam had learned the technique.
Looking around the room, it was much easier to see the pattern that Sam had picked up on, that led him to the theory about it being a woman in white.
Turning back to his brother, he sucked in a breath, whistling quietly. Sam's back and shoulders were a collage of myriad bruises, and if they were that bad already, then it was going to get really ugly by morning.
Ignoring the pounding in his own head, he pushed Sam down on his bed. "Stay." He ordered, voice brooking no argument, and he grabbed up the room's small ice bucket.
He was really sick of his kid getting hurt.
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Sam leaned back tiredly against the hard plastic chairs of the laundromat. The air in the store was muggy, smelling of a dozen different flavors of detergent and fabric softener. He shifted his position, biting his lip when his shoulder screamed in protest. He glanced over at Dean, who thankfully hadn't noticed. Sam had barely managed to keep Dean from forcing Sam into a sling as it was.
John had left out that morning, saying something about an emergency two states over, and that Bobby would meet him out there and be his back up.
He hadn't said a word about either boys injuries, just listening as they relayed the events. Deeming them to now have enough information to close the case, he had left without a second thought.
Sam could tell the constant chasing after Dad was starting to wear on Dean, and Dean was compensating by keeping Sam closer than normal.
The load in the dryer came to a finish and Sam stood up to go over to the machine, only to be roughly-but-not-too-roughly shoved out of the way by his brother and Sam rolled his eyes.
Dean made a face as he pulled the clothes out. "Some of the jeans are still wet." He complained, and Sam stuck his good hand into his pants pocket. Fishing out the last of his change, he held it out to Dean.
"Here, put them in for another fifteen minutes. We don't want to pack them wet. I'll take the first bag out to the Impala."
Dean raised a brow. "Try again, bro. You baby sit the laundry, I'll take the bag out. Your shoulder's wrecked, man. Let it heal before it falls off or something."
"Just...okay. Whatever" Sam said, forcing down his irritation at being treated like a child. He knew Dean was worried, and hell yeah, his shoulder hurt, but how was he ever supposed to prove his worth if Dean didn't let him?
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Dean lugged the duffel out to the impala and tossed it into the trunk. Slamming the lid, he started back across the street to the laundromat. He slowed as he saw that a county Sheriff had pulled up outside. The two officers were looking up and down the street, and Dean had a bad feeling about that.
He slowed even more, trying to look casual as he pivoted and walked back up the sidewalk. Pulling out his phone, he dialed Sam's number, thankful he'd insisted the kid keep it on him at all times, even when he was already with Dean.
"Dean?" Sam's surprised voice sounded in Dean's ear, but Sam was silent after that, knowing that if his brother needed to call him from the parking lot then something was up.
"5-0" Dean said quickly, glancing back casually to see that the officers had noticed him, and were quickly zeroing in on him. "Get out, wait for them to leave and take the car. Go meet up with Dad."
"What about you?" Sam replied, sounding alert but calm. "And you have the keys."
"Not anymore." Dean replied as he discreetly dropped his car keys into the planter he was standing next to. "Blue planter. Yellow flowers."
"What about you?" Sam repeated, as a heavy hand clamped down on Dean's shoulder.
"Little late for that, kiddo." Dean snapped the phone shut before the officer could take it from him, thankful that Sam had never been with Dean or John on any of the interrogations.
The police had no reason to even look for him, and all his gear was in the trunk, which was locked.
"We're gonna need you to come with us, Sir." The way the officer said 'sir' had Dean fairly certain he didn't mean it.
Wasn't this gonna be fun?
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Sam watched surreptitiously out the window of the neighboring internet cafe as the officers arrested his brother. He winced in sympathy as they manhandled him into their squad car. He needed to retrieve the keys, but he couldn't until the crowd had dispersed, so he sat down at one of the computers and started digging.
Dean might have wanted Sam to run to John, but since Sam couldn't think of a single thing in the universe that would ever make that happen, he would have to take care of this himself.
Constance had to be tied to something or someone or somewhere. Something was anchoring her, but what?
She had to have some kind of weakness. Sam started researching every case of a woman in white haunting that he could find, and then he started making calls.
He called John first to report.
"Can you handle this on your own?" John's voice was stern and tinged with doubt.
"I'll call for back up if I can't. Dean won't be there long. No way a county lock up is gonna be able to hold him." Sam replied, heart hammering.
"Get it taken care of, Sam." John's voice was dismissive, and he hung up without another word.
Next he talked to Bobby, listening as Bobby recounted his experience with the woman in white. Bobby had had a body to burn, however, so it wasn't really the same.
By this time, two hours had passed and Sam's cell phone was almost dead, so he ambled out and retrieved the Impala keys when no one was looking. It was getting late, the sun setting in the distance, and Sam deciding he'd better move the Impala before the police had it towed.
He got in the car as discreetly as he could, and pulled out smoothly into the light evening traffic. Pulling over on a secluded gravel road, he parked, rolling down the windows to catch the breeze. He rubbed his aching head, determined to find a solution.
They had no body to burn. But maybe their was something, a lock of hair, maybe, at Constance's old house. It was unusual for a ghost's hunting ground to be so far from it's anchor, but Constance appeared to be an unusually strong ghost.
He'd have to go out to the old farmhouse. He'd been avoiding doing it alone, it was crazy dangerous without back up and his shoulder made him half-useless already, but he couldn't see any way around it.
But first he needed to make one last call before his cell gave out.
"9-1-1, what is your emergency?" The bored sounding voice at the other end of the line said.
"Someone's shooting!" Sam said, infusing his voice with the right amount of panic. "Please send the police!"
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Dean barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes at the pedantic Sheriff.
"You caught me, Sheriff. I did it. Even the ones twenty-five years ago. Before I was born." Dean dead panned.
"We know you have an accomplice. We saw all those crazy photos pinned up in your hotel room." The Sheriff replied.
"We're writers. That's research." Dean said for what seemed like the fifteenth time. "Everything up there is information anyone could get their hands on."
"Hector Alvarez's social security number sure wasn't common knowledge, but you managed to get a hold of that and his credit card." The Sheriff retorted, and Dean winced a little.
That might be a little harder to explain.
"Sheriff!" A wide eyed secretary ran into the room, flustered curls flying around her face. "Someone just called in shots fired down on Tanner's Bridge Road."
The Sheriff cursed and Dean had to bite down a grin. The Winchesters were probably more excitement than the small town of Jericho saw in most decades.
He watched in amusement as the Sheriff and his two deputies rushed about the room, gearing up. Discreetly he began unfolding the paper clip from the desk.
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Sam walked carefully through the old abandoned farm house. Constance's husband had appeared to leave the majority of the family's possessions behind when he moved out. There were still some old pictures on the walls, hanging over faded, peeling wall paper, and dust and debris choked the floor.
Carefully, testing each step for soundness, he began heading slowly upstairs. The place was creepy, even for a Winchester, and Sam felt the gun tucked away at the small of his back for reassurance.
It was only a hand gun, and useless against a ghost, as last night had proved, but it made him feel better. John had presented it to Sam before he left that morning, though Sam noted that he was careful to do it while Dean was out of the room. Filing that little fact away for later, Sam had taken the piece and tucked it under his shirt.
Now, as he crested the top of the staircase, he felt a cold draft dance across his skin, the hairs on his arms all standing at attention.
He paused as he heard what sounded like children giggling, and he fought down the urge to get the hell out of there, as memories of Peter pulled at him.
He freaking hated creepy ghost children.
Pushing forward, he slowly opened the door at the end of the hall.
It was a nursery, or had been one years ago, though instead of cribs the room had two small beds. There was still a teddy bear on the ground, dirty and dusty and missing an eye. A spider crawled lazily across it and Sam shuddered again.
The giggling echoed around him again, and the room was cold enough that any moment now, Sam would be seeing his breath.
He jumped when his phone rang, the shrill tone echoing in the murky stillness. Glancing down, he could see the battery warning sign flashing, but he opened it anyway.
"Fake 9-1-1 call Sammy? Impressive, even for you!" Dean's voice was jubilant, still high on his escape from the police and Sam smiled slightly.
"You with Dad?" Dean asked, suddenly all business, and Sam's smile slid away as the giggling started behind him again.
"Not...exactly." Sam said, pivoting slowly to face the two small, shadowy silhouettes in the room's doorway.
"Sammy?" Dean's voice had risen three octaves, and Sam would have winced, except the two shadows had started moving forward, and that was a little more important.
"I might be out at the old farmhouse." Sam forced his voice to remain casual, but Dean heard the alarm in it all the same.
"Get out, Sam, get the hell out of there right now!" Sam heard Dean, heard the words, but there was a strange rushing in his ears, and he suddenly felt light headed.
The phone dropped from his numb fingers, and the rest of his body followed as the vision hit him fast.
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"Sam! Sammy!" Dean cursed fluently as the line went dead, and set about finding a car to steal, muttering the entire time about how he was going to low-jack his kid brother.
He got the old Buick going quick enough, and peeled out towards the highway, facing into the blinding sun as it set.
He needed to get to Sam and get him out of whatever the hell he had gotten himself into. He didn't waste anytime calling John, if Sam hadn't called him already, then he was too far to help the boys now.
He drove quickly, taking the shortest route without even thinking about it, which proved to be a miscalculation, when suddenly Constance appeared in the middle of the highway, and Dean slammed on the brakes much the way Sam had last night.
Dean cursed again as he realized he had driven right into her trap, that deadly stretch of highway 17.
"Take me home." The words were close, so close, and suddenly Constance wasn't standing in front of the car, she was sitting inside, with Dean, and his breath was suddenly coming out in clouds.
"No way in hell." Dean cried vehemently, reaching for the door handle, but the locks clicked all on their own, and suddenly the car was accelerating, driving itself forward, and Dean spared a moment to be thankful that at least his hitchhiker had the same destination he did.
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Late evening sunlight streamed into the cheerful yellow bedroom, and the two small children were huddled over a board game on the floor.
Sam could hear them, could smell dinner cooking from downstairs, could hear the sound of water running.
"Mommy!" The older boy looked over, jumping up and running over to the woman who had appeared in the doorway. Sam was struck by how pretty Constance had been in life, even now, as she stood with tear tracks drying on her cheeks and a blank expression in her eyes.
"Are you okay, Mommy?" The little girl asked worriedly, and Sam railed against the vision, desperate to not be forced to watch what happened next.
His struggles were to no avail, and the scene played on, perhaps in this house it was always playing, on a loop, over and over, and Sam just happened to be today's lucky viewer.
"Bath time." The woman replied disjointedly, and the boy frowned.
"We haven't ate yet." He said.
"Your father will be home soon, and we need to get ready." She replied.
The boy frowned again, but the little girl was already taking her mother's hand trustingly, and the boy followed them down the hall.
Sam held back as far as he could, but the memories seemed to pull him forward, and he watched in horror as Constance forced first her kicking and fighting son, then her hysterical daughter under the water, until their hands stopped flailing, their legs stopped kicking.
Sam was certain he was going to be sick as memories of trying to prevent that exact same thing from happening to Andrea flooded his mind.
Afterwards, the dazed woman sat back on her heels, an almost entirely blank look in her eyes that chilled Sam's soul. It was almost worse, however, when the realization came back into them, her breath hitching on a screaming sob, hands pulling at her hair, wet to her shoulders as she plunged her arms into the tub to pull out her lifeless children. He watched as she hysterically tried to revive them, as she dialed 9-1-1.
Then that same preternatural calm seemed to descend on her again, and she dropped the phone, leaving it hanging as she simply walked away, grabbing her keys from the counter.
Sam came out of the vision with a start, as the sound of the engine in Constance's car bled into reality, and he realized he was laying on the dirty floor. The ghost children were gone, but the sound of the car engine remained, and Sam was suddenly worried he knew exactly who was in that car.