Chapter Twelve
Sam came to in a bright room. He sat up, looking around, and realized he was under water.
I'm in the ocean! Sam thought.
He raced forward and came to a halt. He could see a room with shelves in it—like a storage room.
Oh, God, no… Sam thought in horror. Please, no…
He reached his hand forward and placed it against the clear barrier.
Aquarium wall… Sam thought. He stared at the back room beyond the glass in dread. No!
Sam rushed to his left, encountering the same glass wall. He made a 180 and found the same thing. He turned to his right and rushed to the wall, freezing. On this side of the wall was a huge restaurant. It looked like a Chinese or Japanese place—some orient-type restaurant. Sam was in an aquarium…in a restaurant…on display.
Oh, hell, no! Sam screamed in his head.
He rushed up to the top of the water, hoping to break through the top of the tank. There was about a foot of air between the water and the lid. It looked to be metal of some kind that was bolted down. Sam put his hands on it to push, but yelled as his hands burned.
"Iron," Sam muttered.
He dove back under, rushing to the wall in the storage room. He let his torso float back and brought his tail back as far as he could. He swung his tail forward, using the hydrokinesis as momentum, and crashed it against the glass. Nothing happened. Sam hit the glass again and again until his strength finally waned. There wasn't even a splinter in the glass.
It must be reinforced, Sam thought. How the hell am I gonna get out?
His prison was about the size of the dining area of a McDonald's—nice and spacious—and it ran the length of the dining room wall, it looked like. It was about twelve feet tall, reaching up almost to the fifteen-foot high ceiling.
The bounty hunters must have sold me to the restaurant owner, Sam thought. Is this what they did to Lizzie?
Sam thought about that for a second before going for it.
"Lizzie?" Sam called out telepathically for her.
There was no response.
"Lizzie?" Sam called one more time.
There was more silence.
"…Sam?" came Lizzie's faint, small voice.
"Lizzie!" said Sam. "Are you okay?"
Sam heard a sob.
"No," said Lizzie.
"Are you hurt?" asked Sam.
"No, no, I'm fine," said Lizzie. "Just a small cut. I don't know where I am."
"Look around," said Sam. "What do you see?"
There was a pause.
"Um…some shelves in a storage area," said Lizzie.
"What about the other side?" asked Sam. "Do you see dining tables?"
"Uh…no," said Lizzie. "It's…it's tables, but it looks more like a bar or something."
"Okay," said Sam. "I'm in a restaurant in a tank, like you. Have you tried breaking out?"
"Yeah, it didn't work," said Lizzie. "What are we going to do?"
"Have you tried to talk to your sister?" asked Sam.
"Yeah," said Lizzie. "We must be too far away from the beach. I couldn't reach to her."
Sam thought for a moment. Maybe it would work…
His psychic powers had been gone for almost a year, but Ruby did say…
"There is a chance that would work…" Sam thought out loud.
"What would work?" asked Lizzie.
"Let me try to talk to her," said Sam. "My mind has always been…sharper than most."
"Okay," said Lizzie.
Sam closed his eyes, trying to make this work.
"Lori?" Sam called as loud as he could.
There was nothing to let him know she'd heard.
"Lori, can you hear me? It's me, Sam."
Sam waited to see if she responded or not.
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"Dean! Dean!"
Dean was shaken awake, still lying in the rain on the pavement.
"Sam…" said Dean dazedly. He looked up and saw Bobby.
"You okay?" asked Bobby.
Dean tried to remember how he'd gotten there. He suddenly bolted upright. "Sam!"
"Where is Sam, Dean?" asked Bobby. "Your room's trashed, and the door was open. What's going on?"
Dean jumped to his feet, scanning the parking lot through the rain. "No, no, no!"
"What is it?" asked Bobby.
"Sam's been fish-napped, that's what," said Dean. "The bounty hunters took him. Where's Lori?"
"I took her back to the dock," said Bobby. "That way, she could keep an ear out for Lizzie. And Sam now, I guess. Which way did they go?"
Dean pointed down the road where he hazily remembered the truck going. "There. Let's go."
They began heading for the Impala when a giant wall of water swept into the parking lot, colliding into Dean and soaking him all over again.
If I hadn't already been wet head to toe, I'd be pissed, Dean thought.
The water gathered back up into the air, forming letters.
"What the…" said Dean, staring at it.
It read: DEAN DOCK.
"It's Lori," said Bobby. "Come on!"
They jumped into the Impala, and Dean sped down to the dock. Lori was in the dock water, looking very frantic and on edge. Dean jumped out of the car, running to the edge of the dock.
"What?" asked Dean. "What is it?"
"It's Sam," said Lori. "I heard him."
"You did?" asked Dean.
Lori nodded. "Very faint. Barely there. He must be very far away."
"What'd he say?" asked Dean.
"My name," said Lori. "Then, 'hear' and 'Sam.'"
"Did he say where he was?" asked Bobby.
"I've been trying to contact him ever since," said Lori. "But it's like he can't hear me. How can he talk to me, but I can't talk to him?"
"It must be his psychic thing," said Bobby. "Allows him to transmit further than the others."
"Psychic?" asked Lori.
"Later," said Dean. "Has he said anything else?"
"I haven't been able to make heads or tails out of anything except, 'Lizzie,'" said Lori.
"Dammit," said Dean.
Lori closed her eyes, listening. "Wait. I hear him again."
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"Lori, I don't know if you can hear me, but if you can, Lizzie and I are being held in display tanks," Sam said, desperately hoping to get through to Lori. "I'm in an oriental restaurant. Lizzie is in a bar. We are west of Atlanta."
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Lori concentrated, repeating what she was hearing. "Know…hear me…Lizzie…tanks…restaurant…bar…Atlanta."
Dean's eyes brightened. "God bless you, Sammy, for your sense of direction."
"What?" asked Bobby.
"Sam was once kidnapped by vampires," said Dean. "They blindfolded him, but he was still able to tell me exactly where they took him."
"Atlanta?" said Bobby. "Atlanta, Georgia?"
"Sounds good to me," said Dean. "Come on."
"I'm coming with you," said Lori. "You're gonna need a mermaid to listen for them."
"Alright," said Dean, holding out his hands to pull Lori from the water. "Come on."
The water suddenly surged up out of the dock, jumping over Dean and Bobby and coming to rest next to the Impala. Lori was perched on top of the pulsing water.
"You coming?" asked Lori.
Dean smirked. "Damn, you're good, girl." He opened the back door. "Don't get the upholstery wet!"
Lori eased herself into the backseat, keeping the seat dry. "Get my clothes from the building!"
Dean rushed over to the building, finding a change of clothes there. He ran back to the car and jumped in, tossing the clothes in the back. As Lori tried to get comfortable in the back, Dean slammed on the accelerator, heading for Atlanta.
"What else did he say?" asked Dean. "Something about a bar?"
"And a restaurant," said Lori. "And tanks."
"Tanks?" asked Dean, frowning. His eyes widened. "Oh, God."
"What?" asked Bobby.
"The two of them could be in tanks," said Dean. "Like aquariums."
"Like, on display?" asked Lori, horrified.
"Yeah, a restaurant and a bar," said Dean. "You getting anything else?"
"No," said Lori. "But the closer we get, the louder and clearer he'll be. I'll need water once an hour to stay like this so I can talk to them."
"Got it," said Dean.
Lori closed her eyes. "Sam, if you can hear me? We're headed to you."
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Sam gave up on contacting Lori for the time being and went back to talking to Lizzie. "Well, if she heard me, I gave them enough information to start heading this way."
"You think they'll find us?" asked Lizzie.
"Yeah," said Sam. "But we're about six hours from Myrtle Beach, so…it'll probably take a while."
"Is anyone in your building?" asked Lizzie.
Sam took a second look around the dining room. "Not yet. Must be night time."
"Yeah," said Lizzie. "No one here either. If it's a bar, it must be early morning. Bars usually stay open late, don't they?"
"Yeah," said Sam. He heard a noise and jolted away from the glass and behind a rock on the tank floor, peeking out from behind it. "Wait a minute, someone's here."
Two men walked into the dining room. One was wearing a suit, and the other was wearing business casual. They both walked over to the tank.
"Where is he?" the business casual asked the suit.
Their voices were muffled, but Sam could make out what they were saying with his advanced hearing.
"There," said the suit, pointing at Sam.
"Little shy, huh?" said the business casual.
"No matter," said the suit. "We have ways of making him come out. He'll be a nice addition to the decoration."
"Yep," said the business casual. "Where'd you get him?"
"Couple of bounty hunters," said the suit. "Paid a good penny for him."
The business casual smiled. "Well, we'll see how it goes over at opening time in two hours."
"Yes, we will," said the suit.
They walked away from the tank, and Sam snuck up to the glass to watch. The suit glanced back at him.
"See?" said the suit. "He's curious."
The business casual looked back at Sam. "Well…he's not hard on the eyes."
Sam glared daggers at them as he swam to the back of the tank.
Oh, this is so not good, Sam thought. Dean, hurry.
"Lizzie," said Sam.
"What?" asked Lizzie.
"This restaurant is about to open," said Sam. "I guess it's around seven o'clock or something."
"The bar probably won't open until later this afternoon," said Lizzie.
"Don't worry, Lizzie," said Sam. "If I know my brother, they're on their way here right now."
Okay, I need help. Can anyone think of a reason why the restaurant owner would no longer want Sam?