Chapter Eighteen
A Bitter Pill to Swallow
I'm in hell. It's the one thought she could keep in her head. I'm in hell and it's never going to stop. The tears had been flowing freely for a while already. In fact, she'd cried herself dry twice in the space of time she'd been there. Cal was in trouble, a lot of it, without any chance of relief.
The pain was pretty bad, but she'd had worse. It was the psychological warfare she had no defense against. They kept her in complete darkness, gave her a bowl of water in the morning and a cup of broth in the evening. Every so often a piece of bread slid through the slot where the door met the floor. If ever they thought she might be falling asleep someone would make a racket, banging away at the door until the pounding made its way into her brain. The headaches would prevent sleep of any kind. That was when the tears would come, and the desperation.
She wasn't the only one either. Somewhere beyond the darkness was a man in his own private hell. His voice normally a deep, smooth baritone now broken and gravelly made to be hardly more than a whisper in the darkness. Every so often he'd let out a roar, usually something along the lines of 'we had a deal, you've got to let her go' and 'just leave her alone'. Last time she'd heard him scream 'you hurt her, I swear to God I will kill you.' Whatever it was they were threatening to do to her, Malcolm was doing his best to talk his way into taking the brunt of it. But it wouldn't work forever. They were already getting impatient.
"The books, Caitlin. Where are they?" The faceless voice on the other side of the door would ask. "Let me out and I'll take you to them." She'd given them the same answer countless times. Every damned time. It was no use telling them what they wanted to hear because then there wouldn't be any leverage. It would be too easy for them to just get rid of her and Malcolm. No, she needed them to let her out. At least then she'd have the chance to fight them and maybe, just maybe, get out.
"Tell us where the books are." Broken record much? And these folks were supposed to be her family? Cal just repeated her now standard answer which was met by silence. This was the time they'd had enough. Some kind of summoning spell was spoken just outside the door and then there was something loose in her cell, hell bent on destruction. It had to be a spirit or something, because she couldn't get her hands on the damned thing. It kept picking her up to throw her around the room like some sort of ragdoll. Left with nothing to defend herself all she could do was wait it out and try not to break any bones.
They came back again and again, over and over until she lost all track of time and self. In the moments of stillness between the ghost and Malcolm going quiet, that one thought overwhelmed her all over again. I'm in hell. A question without any kind of a good answer following closely on its heels: Why didn't I tell them? Visions of Sam and Dean rushing in to rescue her swam around in her mind's eye, fighting back the darkness and failing miserably.
"You think that Malcolm guy had any idea that the Governor's place wasn't actually haunted?" Sam asked a tense and overwrought Dean. "I think 'that Malcolm guy' is going to get an ass kicking the next time I see him is what I think." Dean had been getting more and more frustrated with every passing day since Cal had left which was understandable under the circumstances. "Mandy seems nice enough." Of course, Sam would think as much considering he hadn't been the object of her affections the entire time they'd been at the Governor's home. "Oh yeah. She's one in a million all right." She had been frittering away their time by making passes at Dean and generally getting in their way. Dean was pretty positive she'd been perfectly aware that there hadn't been any real supernatural activity in her home. The way she waxed on about Malcolm it was becoming pretty clear she was distracting them to make him happy.
"She seem a little, I dunno, lonely to you?" If Sam was trying to be funny Dean couldn't see the humor in it. "Sam, she's been wasting our time for the last four days." It was all he could do not to punch the steering wheel. "We should be looking for Cal right now. I can't explain it, but she's in it up to her eyeballs, I can feel it in my bones." An acid-reflux-inducing gut instinct was tearing him up from the inside out.
"Okay, so we let the Governor down easy and hit the road." Sam was just as eager to get a lead on Cal's whereabouts. The whole situation was so out of character from what he'd seen of her over the past year, and there had been the call from Fran who had picked up the messages from their voice mail. Cal had left the equivalent of a full on goodbye as if she'd already known they wouldn't ever be seeing each other again.
Fran had been hysterical, ready to drop everything to head out to find her friend. It had taken Sam hours to talk her down and even then it had been Jason and Maggie who had been the deciding factors.
"What do you think she meant with that 'I'm sorry' Sam?" If anything it should have been the other way around, Dean should have been the one doing the apologizing. "I don't know Dean. You can ask her when we find her." Oh sure, provided they did find her and that when they did she was still breathing. And that was a thought he could have done without, along with every morbid image it brought to mind.
"Yeah, we've got to give Mandy the shake off." It was way past time to get Mandy, the seventy year old governor with the flirtatiousness of a teenager off their backs. There was a grim determination to the set of his jaw as Dean pointed the Impala back toward the Governor's mansion. Sam glanced across curiously, wondering just what it was his brother had in mind that the real work hadn't yet accomplished. Dean's grin was just this side of crazy and didn't quite reach his eyes. "A Ouija board and some flashing lights should do it." They'd seen enough over the years to do a passable fake-out job, all they had to do was scare her. They had everything they needed in the trunk and Dean could keep Mandy busy while Sam played around with the wiring. Wouldn't take much, after that it wouldn't take all that much to convince her they'd made the thing go away. "You think we can be out of here by nightfall?" Sam asked as they pulled up to the gate. "Sammy, I think we can be outta here within the hour." And sure enough, they were.
It was getting hard to take stock of her own body. Lack of sleep had Cal thoughts going all fuzzy around the edges. She'd adjusted to the darkness enough to be able to see the thin sliver of light around where the door was. At least, she assumed it was a door from the general shape of it. Her shoulder had been dislocated when she'd been slammed up against the wall by the spirit they'd let loose on her. Her ankle was probably twisted. Her elbows and knees were all torn up and covered in a twisted sort of road rash from being dragged across the floor. "You've been in better shape, Cal." She said out loud, having begun to talk to herself to try and save her sanity. So far it wasn't working.
She'd found the part of the door that she thought might be the hinges and had started working away at them with her fingers, hoping to pry them out. Worst case scenario she could use one to defend herself if anyone ever came in to the room, though she wasn't all that sure how. Poke at their eyes maybe? Best case scenario she could remove all three of the hinges and possibly pry open the door enough to squeeze out. Realistically neither of those things would happen, but Cal wasn't usually known for being realistic about her expectations. Specifically the ones she had for her own abilities and especially when sleep deprivation was an issue.
She'd tried to scream for Malcolm during one of those sessions she'd spent as a projectile toy. She'd shouted and yelled for him until her voice had given out but he hadn't answered her. He'd been so quiet for so long she wasn't even sure if he was alive anymore. There'd been some sort of scuffle somewhere beyond her door some time earlier and she figured they'd either moved him away somewhere else or he'd fought them so much that they'd finally had enough and got rid of him. The reprieve was almost worse than the constant attention. Too much time to think was rarely a good thing. There hadn't been a bang at her door or an unwanted visit in long enough to make her worry. Was she alone and stuck in this place with no way to ever get out? Had they left just to bring back one of her friends? What if the next voice she heard from down the hall was Fran's? Or worse, one of the kids? Maggie wouldn't be able to hold up against this. She'd loose her mind before she could say her own name.
"Caitlin?" Malcolm, sounding worse for wear, talking to her from the slot in the door by the floor. "Malcolm, Is that you?" What in the hell was going on? Was she hearing things? Was this another one of their games? "Sorry, I passed out. Needed a bit of time to heal enough to move again." There was a loud scraping sound, like someone was clawing their way up the door. Apparently Malcolm had been lying on the ground to talk to her because she was pretty sure he'd just used the door to get himself upright again.
"Move as far back from the door as you can, I'm breaking it down." And how exactly was he going to accomplish that with a metal door? She didn't have any time to wonder because he'd already started at beating it. Scuttling a little further back with every slam that reverberated from the door she flinched as the sound echoed of the walls and slammed into her pounding head. There was a moment of true fear as the first splinter of light hit her face, its brilliance sharp and painful to her sensitive eyes, and then relief. Right there, on the other side, was the outline of a familiar bicep just visible through the gash that had been made in the door. Two more good strong swings and it split in half vertically from very top to very bottom.
Cal crawled through the small opening that had been made; had to because when she tried to stand her legs let go. Her savior wasn't in much better shape either. Malcolm was sitting against the wall next to the broken door, apparently winded from the effort of getting the door open.
"How the hell did you manage to kick open a metal door like that?" Did he have some sort of superpower along with the whole living forever bit that he hadn't shared? "The door's made of wood, you tool." He laughed hoarsely at her, lifting a tired hand up to show her the axe he was holding. Oh. Well that explained a lot. Now on to the scarier question, where the hell was her so-called family?
"Where are they?" The count she'd taken when they'd arrived had been seven adults, two teenagers and six children ten and under. Two of those were barely toddlers. He turned and looked her right in the eye, more serious than she'd ever seen him. "Four dead, killed 'em myself." There was a drying blood trail leading down the white linoleum tiled hallway floor. That had been the scuffle she'd heard. "M'not sure where the others are. Looks like its dark out so if they still do things like they used to, the littler kids'll be abed the older ones responsible for them. As for their parents, I think I heard the blonde one say something about driving to Wichita for a hunt. Hard to say what was for show and what was real, though." Yeah. No kidding. Wow, suddenly Cal really needed a little human contact.
Crawling a little further, she shifted slowly to sitting next to the man who had got her into this mess in the first place. Resting her sore head on his warm, solid shoulder she sighed. "I… God, Malcolm, when things got so quiet I thought you were dead." Sliding an arm around her waist, he pulled her up against his side and held her loosely. "I told 'em if they hurt you, I would kill 'em." Yes. Yes he had. Nice to know he was the kind of guy who was good with the follow through.
"We need to get the heck out of Dodge." They didn't have long before one of the kids noticed something wasn't right. They were freaky little buggers, her cousins. Cal wasn't really sure how she felt about the lot of them, but it sure wasn't the warm fuzzies.
"Your car's a write off for now. They parked it up by the big house. We won't ever get to it without everyone realizing we're on the loose. I don't know about you, but I'm not up to taking them all on just yet." Yeah. Cal could relate. "On the way in, there were some older model cars. They were dirty and beaten to crap, like the work trucks back home. I think they use them for jobs. You think we could manage one of those?" It killed her to have to ask rather than just believe they could and move on that. Problem was that with these guys it was impossible to tell what was doable and what was impossible.
"If I can hotwire it I can drive it. You're looking pretty worse for wear there. You gonna be able to get over there on your own steam?" He looked doubtful she'd be able to lift her head off his shoulder, let alone walk out the half mile to the group of cars they were talking about. Looking down at herself she couldn't blame him. Her fingers were scratched up and bloody from working at the door hinges, the knees of her jeans were gone along with the first few layers of skin. Her left ankle was so swollen they'd probably have to cut the sock of her foot. Oh, and her right arm was hanging at a weird angle, probably because of the awkward way her shoulder had set itself when it had been slammed out of joint. Okay, so maybe she'd let this one go. He had good reason for asking.
"You're no beauty queen, yourself, cowboy." Admittedly, he looked a whole lot better than she did though he had more color to him. A black eye, a bright red gash down his cheek and a myriad variety of bruises across every inch of skin that were all kinds of different shades of purple and blue. All of them gifts from the insane side of the O'Sulivan clan. No signs of anything more serious though which struck Cal as strange considering how rough these guys had been. "Yeah, well, I heal quickly." Hm, she'd have to ask him to clarify that little tidbit of information later.
"Right. We're wasting time." He groaned, pushing himself clumsily to his feet and using the wall for leverage. "Can you stand?" Cal tried to push herself up the same way Malcolm had, she really did. Unfortunately, one graceless tumble sideways later there was no denying that she wasn't going to leave that place on her own steam.
Without giving her any kind of chance to argue, he scooped her up in his arms intent on carrying her out. It wasn't pretty, he was limping and she had to hold on tight because he wasn't all that steady, but it got the job done. Her pride almost couldn't take it, except that this guy was being so matter-of-fact about it. Like he rescued women all the time and carrying them around injured was just another part of the routine. Same old story, different day. Of course that didn't do anything to lessen the stinging of her injured pride.
"I wish we could drive my Mustang out of here." A mumbled curse as he helped her to buckle in the passenger seat of an old Chevrolet Corsica that had seen better days. Then a critique shot out at his preferred choice of getaway cars. "You figure the only red one in the bunch won't be a little conspicuous?" It was just a dig. They'd be ditching the car pretty quickly so the color wouldn't matter much in the end, but she felt a little better giving him a hard time. "You're just upset because we've got to leave all your toys behind." He had her there.
"My favorite knives and my ass kicking boots are in that car." And along with them were her cell phone, all of her id, her clothes and her everything else in the world that was of any kind of value. "We'll get them back." He sounded so sure, she could almost believe him.
"Where are we going to go?" There wasn't a place on earth she'd ever rested her head that these people hadn't heard of. Everything they needed to find those places was in her car. Add to that the fact that Malcolm hadn't been kidding when he'd told her they were well connected and they were screwed. "The farm's out, it'll be the first place they look since you and your dad spent so much time there. Your place in New York is out too because it's been your go-to place for so long. They'll be watching Harvelle's and Bobby's in case we go looking for help. For all we know they could've staged this whole escape hoping to follow us to what they want." Well, way to go painting the future in six different shades of hopeless there, buddy.
"That's not an answer." She wasn't beat up enough to pass up calling him on it. Malcolm just scowled out at the dirt road as he barely maneuvered the Corsica over it. "I've got a place we can go to, just trust me okay?" Yeah, sure, trust him. "Right, because that went so well the first time eh?" Cal wasn't likely to ever forget that dark, tiny room of horrors or the lessons she'd learned there. The very first one being that trusting Malcolm had the occasional side-effect of tossing her into painful, impossible situations.
To Malcolm's credit, he'd warned her about what she was getting into before they'd set out. There hadn't been much choice as to her participation, but he'd made sure she was walking in with her eyes wide open. He could have argued that fact when she called him out for being untrustworthy. He could've also pointed out that he was the one who'd got them the hell out of there. But he didn't. What Malcolm did do was hand her a cell phone, and lord only knew where he'd picked it up from. "Call your people and warn them. Your friend, with the kids? Tell her to keep them home and not let them out of her sight." He leveled her with a look that reminded her, as if she'd needed it, of just what kind of people they were dealing with. "And call the Winchesters." Ominous words that sent chills down her spine and across her skin; for once she didn't argue or toss that sass around. The most sobering thought hit her hard. Her worst nightmare was coming true, work was following her home and putting everyone that mattered in danger.
There were any number of calls to make but in the end she only made the one. "Hello?" Just the sound of his voice brought back the memory of gentle hands working out a mess of tangled hair. "Sam. There isn't much time." In the background was the hungry growl of the Impala's engine and it made her want to cry all over again. All she wanted was to be stretched out across its back seat. "Is that her? Where is she?" Dean, sounding absolutely frantic, overshadowed everything else. Sam's insistent voice was in her ear. "What do you mean? What's going on?" Deep breath, girl, you can do this. "You need to go north, Fran and the kids are gonna need you. It's my…" and here she choked on the word 'family' because these people were anything but. "Keep Maggie and Jason in the house, don't let them out of your sight. Don't let anyone in, not for anyone or anything. These people, they could be kids, teenagers or adults. Some of them'll look a bit like me. Better to just hunker down behind everything you've got until…" Until when? Until they get a clue as to how to stop these monsters? She honestly didn't know. "Just tell me you'll keep them safe, Sam. Please?" She hated the pleading note to her voice and the way it made Sam respond. "Yeah Cal, you know I will." The gentleness in his voice did nothing to hide the fact that she'd scared him. Fear was good. It would keep him sharp, on his toes and hopefully alive.
He didn't hang up but he did bark out an order to Dean, who didn't sound too happy to be left out of the loop even just for now. "Dean, dude, pull in here." "What? Why?" "I'll explain in a sec, just do it." The angry squeal of tires on pavement then the crunch of the car slowing to a stop; Cal closed her eyes and just enjoyed the familiar sounds for a moment. She'd earned the right to such a tiny indulgence. Sam's voice came back too soon and not soon enough.
"I'm going to hand you to Dean. Promise me you'll talk to him?" Yup, she'd scared the daylights out of the poor guy. Damned if she felt bad about it, though. If she was terrified, there was no reason they shouldn't be, especially considering the six shades of hell that had been unleashed on them all. "That was the plan." She assured him. Sam sighed and then was replaced with harsh concern and heavy breathing. "Where are you? What's happening? Are you okay?" Behind closed eyelids she could trace the worry lines across Dean's forehead. "I've been better." She'd wanted it to come out on a laugh, but it came out a whine instead because of the pain. "You sound like hell, Cal. Stay where you are. I'm coming to you. Tell me where I'm going?"
"Dean, listen okay? I need you to call Ash. Tell him Malcolm's says we've got trouble. He'll know what to do." Malcolm had made arrangements, just in case. "Yeah, okay. I can do that while I drive. Where do I find you?" Again with that question, the one she didn't have an answer to. Didn't he understand there were more important things to get done first? "You need to call Bobby too. He's got the books they're after. They don't know it, but that won't stop them from going there. He's too obvious. They'll think that I lent them to him for safe keeping, and they'll be right." She was becoming less and less coherent, exhaustion bringing back the dark that was even now pulling her back down.
"Hey, Cal! Stay with me here. You're not making a whole hell of a lot of sense. Who's 'they'? What books?" But it was no use, she was falling asleep on him and there wasn't a thing either one of them could do to stop it. "Miss you." Cal's final words a weak voiced mumble as she drifted off.
Malcolm swore as the car swerved wildly when he reached over to catch the phone as it fell from her shoulder. Not exactly at the top of your game, old man. Dean was still shouting into the phone trying desperately to wake Cal up, scared and angry at being made to feel helpless. It wasn't that Malcolm blamed him but this wasn't really the most opportune time for a freak out. "Whoa, kid, calm down would ya?" And if he was short on patience he figured he was entitled to be, all things considered.
"I thought you said you were gonna keep her safe?" An accusation loaded with meaning, Dean was beyond angry. The unspoken message that he was going to make Malcolm pay for whatever was wrong with Cal this time. "Yeah, well, I hadn't counted on the level of insanity of these folks being worse that it was twenty years ago." Honestly, he hadn't thought it possible to be crazier than when he'd dealt with them last. "Look, we're somewhere in Maine. Don't ask, it's a long story and I'm too busy running right now to tell it. How close are you?"
"New York, we were going to check out O'Leary's and Cal's apartment to see if we could figure out where to find you." If there was reproach in Dean's tone, Malcolm chose to ignore it.
"We're in Maine right now. I can be in Portsmouth in three hours. Can you meet us there?" He wasn't really asking, not when Dean had made it very clear that he was going to find them regardless.
"Yeah. I'll be there." The Impala's engine revved as if to punctuate how badly Dean wanted to get moving. "Good. Airport parking lot, three hours. Oh, and Dean? Fair warning, she's in pretty rough shape." And because he knew exactly what those words would do to Dean's already protective streak for Cal, Malcolm hung up. He'd need to focus on the road anyway if he was going to get them to Portsmouth without crashing.
Meanwhile back in the random shopping mall parking lot, Sam was busy stealing a soccer mom van and loading his gear into the backseat. Dean had parked just long enough to get an explanation before peeling off toward New Hampshire. Sam could take care of himself. After talking to Malcolm, Dean was pretty sure Cal was a different story entirely.
