Warning: The usual. Don't know why I bother anymore.

Chapter 15: Rescue

Dean and Ash crept down the stairs, guns out, fully aware they could come across anyone at anytime.

The winding staircase wasn't long, just dark and steep, and Dean felt tense the entire time. His grin from the muddy basement was gone, replaced by the anxious knowledge that they were getting close. For a while he had had doubts that Mahone would use his parent's place as a secret base, but no parents would have had a secret staircase leading into God knew where. Not murdered ones anyway. Which begged the question,

"Has this always been here or did the demon create all this?" Ash asked after a moment, as they paused on the steps to make sure no one was coming. Dean shrugged.

"Who knows?" Dean whispered back after making sure no one was around. "The entrance to these stairs look like they were boarded up or something, so they could have been here for ages. But if it has, it's stayed steady, so I'm guessing the demon played some part."

Ash nodded thoughtfully. "Would explain the decomposition of the house."

Dean snapped his head around. "What?" he demanded in a voice probably a bit too sharp. "What the hell are you talking about?"

The kid looked suddenly uncomfortable. "It's something Anya used to theorise about. You know, with feng shui and that, and how each room has an energy… don't worry."

Dean shook his head slowly before looking back around the corner. "Kid, you need to spend some time with someone who isn't your sister. I mean, she's cool, but she's still a girl. You ever heard of things called bars. B-A-R-S. B-ah-rs. Say it with me now -." He cut off as the kid elbowed him, but let a quick grin loose before getting down to business.

He was staring down a short long corridor. Going by the twisting of the stairs, it ran under the house, for the same length. He couldn't see anyone, but there were plenty of side corridors. Around which anyone could be hiding.

He gave a mental shrug and sighed. "Here goes," he muttered. Ash nodded behind him, and he stepped off the stairs into the corridor.

He studied each cell as he passed, noticing the rust and dirt that showed old age. Each door had a sliding bar, which slipped into place beside it. Effective, but simple. He had a feeling the whole place was a lot older than just Mahone's demonic dealings.

Luckily each cell also had small doors about head height that he could use to peek into each room. Still, after doing that seven or eight times, he began to get frustrated. He wasn't the only one.

"This is going to take too long!" Ash whispered sharply. "We should split up, take half the time to search them all."

Dean shook his head as he shut the viewing hole on the ninth cell door. "No way, it's too dangerous. We're in their territory, going by their rules. More chance of getting out of here alive if we stick together."

Ash grumbled something but didn't argue, seeing sense in Dean's logic. The older hunter nodded, moving to the next one, and praying for a bit of luck.

Someone must have heard and decided to answer because the next moment he heard a noise. A banging of some kind. And a muffled shout. It sounded vaguely like…

"Do you hear that?" Dean asked, cocking his head to hear better. Ash frowned in concentration, before his face lit up with excitement and triumphant.

"Anya!" the kid breathed, racing down the corridor, pausing every now and then. Dean followed, letting the kid have the honours for this one. It didn't take long.

Ash paused before a door near the end of the corridor, listening and grinning wildly. Here the banging was louder, and Dean came up to stand beside Ash, nodding.

"This one," he told the younger hunter. As fast as he could, Ash slid the bar across… and fell backwards as his twin sister lunged at him.

"Ash!" she cried, hugging the kid as hard as she could. Dean smirked to see them both squirming on the floor. But after a moment, when it didn't stop, he coughed, bringing them both out of their reunion. Though it did take a while.

Ash and Anya stood, beaming with relief. Then the girl jumped and went back into the cell.

"It's okay, Mena, it's my brother," she coaxed. Dean frowned, sharing a look with Ash. The kid shrugged.

"It's not just Anya and Sam we're going to be rescuing," the younger man told him as Anya led another woman out of the cell.

Dean gaped as he saw the second girl, timid and withdrawn, looking beaten in more ways than just physical. He looked at Anya, who stared pointedly, telling him silently that she would explain later. Dean shrugged.

"Are you okay?" he asked, directing his question at both woman. Anya nodded, while the woman, Mena he guessed, looked down.

"Better seeing your face, Dean," she told him.

"Woman always are," he joked back, ignoring Ash's raised eyebrow. "Where's Sam?"

His stomach sank as she looked away, biting her lip and seemingly refusing to answer. He looked between her and a bewildered Ash, and back again.

"Anya, where's Sam?"

She looked up, guilt in her eyes. "I don't know. Once the demon found out about him, found out who he was, it took him away. To a different cell, somewhere… I don't know where."

She glanced at Mena, and sighed. "Plus, he's not the only one we have to get," she told him. Dean and Ash shared another look.

"How many more?" Dean asked, not wanting an answer. This rescue mission was turning into a crusade.

"Three," Anya told him. "A couple they brought in last night, and Mena says the guy from the bucks night is here somewhere as well, still."

Dean's eyebrows rose. "It's been a couple of weeks, and Mahone didn't get rid of him?"

Anya shook her head. "Apparently not. But they should be in this corridor somewhere."

"What couple?" Ash spoke up. "We didn't hear anything."

Anya looked away, grimacing. "The couple from the motel Sam sent them to," she said quietly.

"Sam…" Dean trailed off, shocked, and Anya's head shot up, angry in defense.

"You don't get it Dean!" she spat at him. "He had to give them something. They tortured him, Dean, tortured!" She went on, regardless of Dean's sudden paleness. "The only other way he was getting out of that was in a body bag."

Feeling suddenly nauseas, Dean shook his head, putting his hands up. "Okay, okay, Anya. I get it," he added in a quiet voice. He looked at the girl, or woman, that Anya was still holding onto. He spoke softly. "Mena, do you know where Sam might be?"

She looked up, terror in her eyes. She looked at Anya after a moment, who nodded. Then she looked back at Dean. "I do," she whispered. "There's another level of cells, below this one. He should be down there."

When relief broke out on his face, she smiled, slightly, losing some of that fear. She still didn't let go of Anya though, but Dean knew baby steps were the key.

"Okay," he told the assembled group. "We find these other three people, go down and get Sam, and then… we'll go from there."

He waited for Ash and Anya to nod before looking back at Mena. He felt so sorry for the woman quivering in Anya's arms, and wondered how long she had been Mahone's prisoner for.

"Mena, can you show us the way?"

Sam was freezing. He sat in a corner, having moved from the door, knees up against his chest, arms wrapped around himself. It didn't really do much good, not with bare arms and a sticky shirt.

Sam was exhausted. He refused to go to sleep, unsure if he would wake up, but he was so tired. He didn't think he had ever been so bone-weary before in his life. He hadn't slept in ages, besides being unconscious, which didn't really count. And he was starving.

Or he knew he should be. But he wasn't. He wasn't hungry, he wasn't thirsty, he wasn't in any pain. And he knew that was all wrong. His head should have been pounding, his shoulder should have felt like it was on fire, he shouldn't have been able to breath properly because he was certain his ribs were at least fractured. But all he felt was tired. Weary, fatigued, there was no word to describe how fucking exhausted he was.

And that was when he began hearing the voices.

He couldn't tell what they said at first, but he knew them. Knew most of them. Or thought he did. It wasn't like it mattered who they were, considering there was no doubt that he was imagining them. The idea of rescue had long since disappeared from his mind that now only concentrated on staying awake and not sleeping.

The voices paused outside his door, and he couldn't help but listen as hard as he could. He found it easier than forcing his eyelids to stay open.

A cool breeze hit him and he winced, looking up. Seven faces peered at him. Some middle-aged couple holding each other tight. A guy in his mid-twenties with haunted eyes that had seen far too much. He grumbled inside his own head, because now he wasn't only just imagining people he knew, he was imagining complete randoms.

He ignored them, looking up instead at the people he knew. One seemed to have disappeared, but Mena was there, still frightened, but also taken aback. And there was Anya, hand over her mouth, and Ash, who definitely had to be some kind of mirage because he was with Dean, and Dean wasn't…

"Sammy?" a soft voice said in his ear. Sam turned his head and grinned half-heartedly.

"Speak of the devil," he whispered, unable to speak louder. "You know, for an hallucination, you kinda smell funky."

Dean's face frowned where it seemed to float in his vision. "Okay," he said slowly, looking up at Anya. "What did they do to him?" he asked her.

Sam frowned and reached out. There had been something in that voice, something… He grabbed onto Dean's leather jacket and felt his hand thicken around it. Shocked, he looked up from his hand to Dean's cautious face.

"You are real!" he accused, and Dean's face fell into surprise as he weakly shoved his older brother away. "You dumbass, you actually got caught by Mahone!"

Dean's jaw dropped and he made several sounds of indignation. "Hey, give me some credit, little brother!" he said, grabbing onto Sam's shoulders. "Did it never occur to you that you might need some rescuing?"

Sam paused for a moment, trying to work everything through in his head. Then, "Oh… actually it did once or twice."

He looked up at the doorway again. "So they're all real too?" he asked. He felt Dean flinch and wondered why. He looked back to see Dean rifling through his shirt, pressing a hands to Sam's shoulder.

"Hey, don't touch me!" Sam cried with real fear, leaning back but unable to get away as Dean just ignored him.

"What the fuck did he do to you, Sammy?" the older man asked in a thick voice.

The younger man squinted in thought, trying to remember. Everything seemed a little hazy. He looked back at Dean, pressing his fingers into his eyes.

"A hot knife comes to mind, but… I dunno. Head's all weird, Dean." He looked up again. "Hey, can we get out of here now. I really need some sleep."

Dean nodded, carefully scrutinising every inch of his brother for other injuries. "Yeah, I think we should get out of here right away." Which meant goodbye to murdering Mahone nice and slow, but his little brother was seriously injured. It was probably better this way anyway. "Can you stand?"

Sam gave him a face that wasn't all too convinced. "Maybe if you help," he suggested. Dean nodded, taking position on the side of the uninjured shoulder and lifting. Sam grunted with the sudden levitation, swaying slightly.

"I think I need a hospital, Dean," he muttered, rubbing his eyes again. Dean snorted as he escorted Sam from the cell.

"No shit, Sammy," he said softly. "No hospital is no option when half your head is caked with your own blood."

To his shock Sam actually chuckled. "Yeah, having your head slammed into a wall by a super-strong demon tends to do that… fucking bastard." Sam suddenly became bitter. "It did something to me, Dean…"

Sam suddenly trailed off, not leaning on Dean anymore, but standing up straight, hatred curling his lip.

"Mahone," he spat around the curl.

Hearing gasps he looked up from Sam's bruised face. His eyes met Isaac Mahone's and the man smirked in triumphant before speaking up.

"Well I'll be damned."

Here comes big fight time! Well, it'll be here tomorrow, if I manage to post. I swear I'll try!