Chapter 6:
Dean shut the back door to the Impala, Trevor in the backseat wrapped in Dean's jacket, and got into the driver's seat as Sam took shotgun. Sam took out his cell phone as Dean took off.
There was barely one ring before it was answered. "Yea?" asked a voice quickly on the other end.
"We've got him, Jaz. He's okay," Sam said, glancing back to Trevor.
Sam heard a full second of shocked silence and then Jaz let out a small sob. "Oh my God," she breathed. She let out a breath of relief. "Oh thank God."
"Listen, we're on our way back. We'll be there in like ten minutes. You'll stay with Trevor. We've got to take off back to the place he was being held so we can take care of a few more things. Okay?" Sam asked.
"Yea, okay," Jaz whispered. "He-He's really okay? He's not hurt? Did he say anything?"
"He didn't say anything, but that doesn't mean much. He's drugged right now, some sort of muscle paralytic, but it should wear off in about half an hour."
Sam heard the soft hitch in Jaz's breath. "Okay."
"We'll be there soon."
"Okay. Thank you."
"No problem," Sam said quietly.
Dean drove quickly back to the motel, pulling up in front of their room, and Jaz opened the door just as he put the car in park. Her eyes were slightly red and she stared at the car as Dean went into the backseat and gently took Trevor out, carrying him to the room. Jaz numbly moved aside as he walked over and laid him down on the bed.
Jaz already had gloves on, Dean noticed, and was wearing long sleeves and pants. She sat down next to Trevor, laying a hand gently on the side of his face. "Trevor? Sweetheart?" she whispered. Jaz brushed some hair from his face as his eyes fluttered open. Dean heard her let out an astonished breath. "Trevor, it's Jaz. You're okay. You're safe now. Don't try to move; you were given something. It should fade in about twenty minutes though, okay?" She let out another shaky breath and took his hand in hers. "God, I love you so much," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "I'm so glad you're okay."
"Jaz, we've gotta motor," Dean said quietly. Jaz looked up to him and nodded. "Salt line by the door and windows is still good, I checked, and you're set with holy water and the gun. If he's hungry, just the saltines and Sprite and water. We'll be back in an hour or two."
"Okay," she said. He turned to leave. "Dean." Dean glanced back at her, his hand on the doorknob. "Thank you," she whispered. He gave her a tight smile and closed the door as he left.
Jaz turned back to Trevor, letting out a soft sigh. She stared into his tired, worried blue eyes. "Everything's okay. We're gonna be okay." She climbed onto the bed next to him and put a hand on his arm, settling in beside him. "Close your eyes, honey. Just rest," she said, gently rubbing his arm. "I'll be here when you wake up." Trevor blinked at her once slowly before he closed his eyes. Jaz angled her arm against the pillow, resting her head on it, as the tightness in her chest she'd felt for the last two weeks finally started to melt away.
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Sam waited down the hall, in the room where Trevor had been kept, silent but ready to leap into action at a moment's notice. Dean was waiting at the other end of the hall in the shadows of the corner, behind where the door from the stairwell would open, the knife in his hand. The devil's trap was spray-painted on the ceiling immediately to the left, covering the width of the hallway from left to right, maximizing the chances of both demons being caught in it. There was also another directly outside the room Sam was in and one above Dean, just for a precaution.
Dean had just glanced at his watch again, which read 2:55, when he heard footsteps coming down the stairs. The hollow echoing gradually grew louder and the door finally opened. The two demons went to the left, straight into the devil's trap. They had just realized what had happened, both crying out angrily, when Dean leapt forward, plunging the knife into the back of the demon closest to him, swinging an arm around his neck and pulling him backwards. The man stopped at the edge of the devil's trap as if hitting a wall, holding there for a moment before the demon died, and the body of the dead host fell back into Dean.
"No!" screamed the other demon furiously, leaping at Dean and slamming his fist into the invisible wall.
Dean let the body of the dead man fall to the ground and took a few breaths. "Sam!" he called. Sam emerged from the door down the hall, walking over to the demon, stopping at the other side of the trap.
"Hunters," the demon growled, something wicked sharpening the edge of its voice. "Where's the boy?"
"Safe," Dean replied quietly. "What did you want with him?"
The black eyes turned on Dean, a smirk gracing his face. "What makes you think I'll tell you?"
The demon cried out, pulling away and falling to the ground, putting up an arm to defend himself as Sam splashed holy water on him. "I don't know," Sam said casually. "Maybe you're just in a good mood." Curling his upper lip at Sam, his eyes narrowed, he spat at Sam's feet. Sam pursed his lips and dumped the rest of the holy water on his head. The demon howled and tried to draw away and cover his head, but the trap kept him confined.
Letting out a low growl that was barely human, he raised his eyes to Sam's. "Go screw yourself," he snarled.
"Actually, we're here to make you an offer," Dean said, cocking his head slightly. "See the pretty knife?" he asked, motioning slightly in the air. "This knife is going in your throat unless you tell us what you wanted with Trevor."
The demon let out a short laugh. "You expect me to believe you'll let me go if I tell you what we wanted?"
Dean grinned. "Ah, you know us better than that. No, you get to choose between the knife and an exorcism. Gives us something to bargain with."
The black eyes looked back and forth between Sam and Dean for a moment. "You've got me here locked in here," he growled. "Why would I believe that you'd kill the host instead of doing an exorcism anyway?"
Dean crouched down to the demon's level, though he was careful to stay a foot away from the edge of the circle. "I really want to kill you," he said, his voice dangerously low. "You kept that boy here for days…helpless…not knowing if he was going to live or die…tortured by whatever Hell you put him through. I want to make sure that you can never hurt another human being…ever again. I want to make sure that those kids are safe from another one of the things that would come after them. And I'm willing to kill this guy to do it. But if you cough up what you guys were up to, it's worth it as long as I get to send you back to Hell."
The demon looked to Sam for a moment, then back to Dean. "You know what the drawbacks of being a demon are? It's crap like this," he told Dean, not waiting for an answer, motioning to the devil's trap above him. "It's the exorcisms and the holy water and the salt and iron that keeps most of us out of places you're in or keeps us in, trapped. And you know the only way a demon gets around all of that?"
Dean pursed his lips. "You wanted Trevor for yourself."
"We wanted to find out what we was capable of first," the demon said. "That's what this last week's been about. We had the sister waiting for her turn, but on her way here she managed to get away from the idiots driving the van. The two that you killed." He briefly looked down the hall. "I'm assuming you killed the other one."
"Oh he's real dead," Dean replied. "How'd you know about her and her brother anyway?"
"Luck," he replied. Then he smirked. "For us, not for the kids. The girl was working at this pawnshop and I walked in wearing some pimp. I just needed to get some fast money without attracting attention; whole other story. Anyway, she felt different. Off. So I tailed her back to her place and found the brother, who felt way off. We figured the boy was more likely to give up what he could do, so we took him first and watched her in the mental ward through security cameras. But she never showed any sign of having any ability, so I don't know how she got out."
Dean pursed his lips. He figured that was because when Jaz used her ability, there was no visible sign except her falling asleep, unless you count the clone of her forming somewhere else. From her description before, he assumed that she could pop up wherever she wanted, which was most likely far away from the mental ward. "Aside from the drugs and the other crap the doctor was pulling, what else were you doing?" Dean asked, his voice tight.
The demon smiled slyly. "Our own types of tests. Of his abilities. How he'd developed them so far. He told us everything easy enough, but we wanted to push him farther to see how much better he could get. We've been breaking him down to build him back up." He shrugged. "Can't have a soldier that won't obey orders."
Dean felt a burning in the pit of his stomach as he gnashed his teeth together. He forced himself to relax slightly. "Soldier," he echoed.
"Yea, we figured Azazel had a pretty good idea with that one," he said, glancing up to Sam for a moment, then back to Dean. "But as you can see, he didn't do a good enough job with just the demon blood. It would take training to actually have a human on our side that would take orders." He smirked. "Worth it though."
"And your boss? Who do you and the other lackeys answer to?" Dean asked, lacing a hint of insult into his voice.
The demon narrowed its eyes almost angrily, leaning toward Dean. "I take orders from no one. This was my operation."
"And it woulda worked if it wasn't for us meddling kids, huh?" Dean muttered, raising an eyebrow.
The demon gave Dean a wicked smile. "Oh yes. You'd be surprised what I can do. If I wasn't in here, I'd have made you wish you were back in Hell," he snarled.
The side of Dean's mouth twitched slightly and he looked up to Sam. "You got any more questions?"
"Nah, I'm good," Sam said.
Dean nodded and didn't hesitate before thrusting the knife forward and into the throat of the man in front of him. Wide, shocked eyes stared back at him as sparks spouted from his mouth and he slumped to the side. Dean yanked the knife back, wiping it on his jeans before turning away from the dead man. "Let's go." Sam followed him up the stairs and out to the Impala.