A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed. Here's the start of the action as promised. Hope you enjoy and I'd love to hear from you all! Please let me know what you think.
Warnings this chapter for extremely hurt Sam and angst for Dean. Also should mention: Don't own 'em, just inflicting pain. They go home to Kripke for band-aids!
Chapter 3
Sam woke again to shivering and an awful pain in his wrists, neck and shoulders. Awareness came back slowly as he pried open an eye. The blindfold was gone. The other eye wouldn't open and he knew this time that it wasn't just blood holding it shut. He could feel the swollen flesh and the throb that accompanied it. His bare arms were stretched tight over his head, his feet barely skimming the ground. He tried to stand, to take his body weight off his shoulders and ease the pain, but found that he was extended beyond his reach. His boots barely connected with the cement floor, the tread grating over it as his body swung from his movements. Dizziness and nausea swamped him at the throbbing in his head and the pain in his neck. He stilled and could feel dry blood against his neck. He also felt blood seeping from the wound at his elbow down his upraised arm to his shoulder. His position must have re-opened the wound. He was in a different room now. Cold, it was cold, and he was shirtless. There was a window high in the rafters, bright light streaming through. He looked at it momentarily, hoping to see something he recognized but all he saw was sky, a few lazy, white, puffy clouds slowly drifting through the blue. He heard another door open, this time a wooden one that didn't make that awful grating sound as steel met steel too tightly. A woman came in, blond and small of stature, but she had the look of a predator about her. She had a knife in a sheath at her waist. The blade was visible slightly, just below the hilt. Sam could tell it was iron. She was a hunter.
"You're a hunter. Why are you taking part in this? Why are you hurting me?"
"Oh, well you see Sammy; I'm a little more than an ordinary hunter." She said in a playful voice. She stepped up to him and planted a kiss on his lips, locking her eyes to his. Hers turned black and Sam pulled back so fast he lost his precarious footing and his arms bore the brunt of his weight, drawing a screaming protest from his shoulders and leaving him breathless. "Easy there, kiddo." She said as she gripped his neck and picked him up, taking the weight off his arms. He had the presence of mind to try the chains and see if they had any give. None. She saw him struggle with them and dropped him, the fall and pull wrenching his left shoulder from its socket.
"GGAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Sam screamed. He felt blackness crouching at the edges of his vision, nibbling away at his consciousness. She picked him up again and settled him back on his toes with one hand, using demonic strength, while the other looped a noose about his neck and fastened it over the beam that held the chain that bound his wrists over his head. She pulled the rope tight enough to dig into his throat and give him absolutely no slack. It dug into his neck just under his chin and held his head up straight so that he had to lower his eyes to see her face. His pain addled brain comprehended her next words even as they rang horribly true.
"You so much as slouch and you'll hang yourself. You wouldn't want to leave that brother of yours nothing to find except a corpse, would you? Especially since he just got out of his deal. You haven't even had time to celebrate." She pulled a handful of something from her jacket pocket. She threw it up into the air, drawing an involuntary flinch from Sam before he realized what it was. Confetti. The tiny brightly covered scraps of paper floated harmlessly to the floor around Sam's feet.
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"Yeah, okay. Thanks Wilkins. You hear anything at all you call me." Bobby listened briefly. "Yeah, I hope we find him too." He clicked his phone shut and walked to the bed. He put a hand to Dean's shoulder and shook gently. Dean jumped and grabbed Bobby's wrist even as "Sammy?" came to his lips.
"Sorry, Dean. The three hunters have fallen off the radar. Good news is that it looks like it is them who have Sam."
"Why the hell is that good news?" Dean asked, sitting up on the bed.
"'Cause they won't kill him outright like the people who want to take his place."
"God, Bobby. We have got to get him back."
"I know we do. And we will but, Dean, you gotta be ready. This could take a while. We don't know what kinda shape he's in now or what he'll be like when we find him. This is gonna get bad." Dean swallowed hard and looked briefly at the stained carpet before casting hardened eyes back in Bobby's direction.
"I'll be ready." Dean said menacingly.
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The female demon possessed hunter left Sam. He was confused, hurting. He tried to clear his mind enough to take stock of all his injuries and try to find an escape. "Okay, Sam. Think damnit." He chided himself, trying to break through the fog that clouded his mind. He finally closed his eyes and took a mental look at himself. His head throbbed, both at the back and along his cheek. A burning cut graced his neck, pulled open continuously by the rope about his throat. The rope itself was gradually creating a raw, sore spot under his chin as his body swayed on his toes to keep the weight off the rope. His arm burned, the wound feeling hot, and he knew infection was setting in. He had no idea how long he'd been here or where he was. Dean's gotta be worried sick. I'm worried sick. What if they got him and Bobby too? Oh God Dean, please be okay. Please be out there somewhere safe. Bobby, keep him safe. Don't let him come for me. God, please, I just got him back free and clear. Don't let these demons take him from me now. Sam fought to slow the breathing that he was unsure of when exactly it had sped up. The rope bit into his neck, making him unable to draw a full breath and darkness waited to embrace him.Gotta calm down. If I pass out… Sam breathed slow and steady and the muddy feeling cleared from his mind. He continued taking stock of his injuries and surroundings.
Sam continued to breathe. More pains registered in him. His shoulder now felt numb from being disconnected from its joint. His hands tingled, blood leaking down his forearms where the chain had bitten into his skin. His thighs and calves cramped horribly from trying desperately to keep his weight supported on just his boot clad toes. He felt a momentary relief that they didn't take his boots. His ribs ached some but he figured that it was from his hanging position and not from injury since it wasn't a sharp or stabbing pain. He looked again at his surroundings and then up at his chains. They were heavy gauge, and rusty, like they'd been in the weather. He noticed in the dim lighting that rust flecks were stuck in the raw places on his wrists and some were suspended in the drying blood that caked his arms. Sarcasm washed over him and he stifled a half insane giggle. Looks like a tetanus shot for me. He looked at the beam again. The chains that he was suspended from were wrapped around the steel support for the… "Huh." Sam said suddenly. He scrutinized that part of his surroundings. He couldn't quite tell if he was in a basement and he was looking at the horizontal beam that supported a house or if it just held up a roof. He could still see daylight from the small window. Turning to look behind him and being careful not to wrench his shoulder he looked at where the beam met the cement block wall.
"Yes!" Sam whispered to himself. The block wall caught his eye. He saw daylight coming in from around the steel beam. The block and mortar were crumbling and Sam figured he was in an old or abandoned building. "If I can just work my way over to that end, I think I can get out of these chains." He looked at the rope that led to the noose about his neck where it connected to the beam. That might be a problem. The rope was tied off tightly. There was no give in it and he couldn't reach it with his uncooperative hands. The chain and rope that held him were not quite a foot longer than his arms. He tried stretching and extending his right fingers, not being able to make his left do what he wished. His legs screamed in pain at the stretching and he sagged, the rope at his throat pulling tight once again. He winced and stood straight again. "Damn. If that freak hadn't dislocated my shoulder for me I'd be outta here."
Something came to Sam's ears and he turned back around quicker than he intended as he heard heavy footfalls outside the wooden door to the room he was in. The door burst open and a big man came through. His eyes were black and shone with disdain as he looked upon Sam. A scar ran the length of his jaw line, looking like something at one time had tried to cut his throat. "So this is supposed to be the leader. I always thought Azazel was cracked." The man's voice was raspy from damage to his throat Sam surmised. The demon possessed man pulled a big bowie knife from a sheath on his belt. He brandished the knife and stalked up to Sam.
Sam shrank back as best he could from the knife that came closer and closer. The demon in the man twisted his face into a parody of a smile and ran the flat of the blade down Sam's face from his forehead to his chin. Sam flinched when the blade moved over his swollen cheek. "Aw, did that hurt, pretty boy?"
Sam's eyes shifted away from the man for the first time. The demon inside took it to be an admission on Sam's part and chuckled. Sam looked back in time to see the angle of the knife change as it came back up to rest just beneath his eye. The demon stepped up closer to Sam and grinned. "This'll hurt a hell of a lot more!" He laughed in Sam's face and turned the blade, raking the sharp edge down over Sam's swollen cheek as if it were a straight razor. Sam tried to pull back and the demon's other hand grabbed Sam by the unmarred cheek and pushed his face into the blade. Sam screamed as blood poured from the wound as skin was shaved off the high spots along the swelling. The blackness claimed Sam as the pain he was experiencing drove off his consciousness. He sagged and immediately began to wheeze as the rope tightened and started hanging him. The man's conscious mind fought the demon, trying to reclaim his body and help the young hunter but the demon pushed back and broke the hunter's spirit with one image. The man's possessed wife, cutting his throat with a butcher's knife as she held him at the bathroom mirror with demonic strength and forced him to watch his own blood flow. The demon inside the hunter regained control and forced the man's body back to watch Sam slowly suffocate.
A/N: Yes I'm leaving it here for tonight. Remember, I don't write death fic even though right now it looks bleak for our Sammy. Please review. It makes me want to update faster.