Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
Warnings: Language and some violence. A death. Human disgustingness.
"I swear," he said again. "I don't know where your son is. Jerry moved him after a couple of buyers suggested taking him somewhere else because of his behavioral issues—the kid fucked up my knee and beat me with a tray. He didn't say where they were going."
Sammy has behavioral issues? Dean was almost proud that his little brother gave them that hard of a time. That he had enough fight to leave this man on crutches even when he was trapped by them.
He also found great satisfaction in the fact that the man in the chair was now missing two fingers, blood draining out of the nubs left behind. His face was a mess of pain, snot, and tears (also a little swollen and bruised). There was a dark stain at the center of his jeans. The room reeked of blood and piss, but this man probably left children in rooms in worse conditions. Confused. Afraid.
It was the least of what he deserved for being a part of any of this. For being a part of Sam's disappearance.
"Then, where's Jerry?" John asked. His knife dripped blood on the man's hand as he hovered it over the next finger.
"I don't know." He sobbed between words. "He isn't back yet. He took Rich, your kid, and another kid and left. I swear that's all I know. That's all I know."
"Who's Rich?"
"The new guy. Wanted some quick cash so he didn't lose his house after he lost his job," he said. "But he ended up liking the job and didn't bother looking for something more legal."
John brought down the knife again and Dean worried that the man might pass out before they had all of the answers they wanted.
The man cried out again, more feral than human at this point. "I answered you!"
John nodded. "Yeah, but I didn't like your answer."
"It was the truth!"
John shrugged. "I don't have to like the truth."
"Okay. Okay," he said. He took a series of deep breaths before he spoke again. His entire body trembled. "Jerry, his number's in my phone. Take my phone. Track him. I don't care. He's not worth it. He's not fucking worth it."
"I appreciate it," John said.
He moved his knife from the man's hand to his throat. After a quick, clean cut, the man gargled out a last string of gibberish with panic in his eyes. Then, it was over and he slumped in the chair. Eyes open, but empty.
Caleb searched through every pocket he found on the man until he pulled out a cell phone. He went through the contacts. "Well, there's a Jerry," he said. "So at least part of it was true."
Dean thought that killing a human would feel different, but it felt like any other hunt. Just with the added emptiness of revenge. He looked at the man in the chair, the blood coating him. He hurt Sam, and John killed him.
He should have drawn it out. For Sam. For the girl on that stage. For all of them.
John wiped the blood from his blade.
"Do you think we should have asked him what he did to Sam?" Dean asked. "He had to come in contact with him if Sam messed up his knee that much and beat him with a tray."
"Maybe, but I don't think it's something you should have heard," John said.
"What do you mean by that?" Dean demanded. "If it's about Sam, I need to hear it."
John glared at him and Dean saw the disappointment return. "You haven't been able to think straight since I left both of you here, especially not with Sam gone. You hearing what happened won't do you any favors. We'll hear from Sam what happened to him once he find him, we don't need a stranger to tell us."
"What about the other kids?" Dean asked, defeated. "We could still help them."
"Dean, we can't," John said. "Not right now."
Dean opened his mouth in protest, but his words were halted when Caleb's hand landed on his shoulder with a shake of his head.
Dean looked at his father, and he could see the weight of his decision. Helping people was what they did, but they had a timeline to save one of their own.
"We'll come back," he said. "Once we get Sammy to safety, we'll hunt down the rest of the bastards involved in this. We won't be able to save all of the kids, but we'll save some from ever being taken."
They left the storage closet with the man's body still slumped in the chair. Dean wanted to salt and burn him and avoid having a vengeful spirit on their asses, but moving the body would draw too much attention and doing it in the room would draw even more attention if the fire couldn't be contained.
"How fast do you think you can track that number, Caleb?" Dean asked.
"Believe me, Dean," Caleb said. "I'll be tracking it as fast as I can. I want to see Sam safe just as much as you do."
Dean didn't think anyone could want to see Sam safe as much as he did, not even their father.
Not when Sam had been his responsibility, his charge, since November 2, 1983.
When did he forget how to do the most important job ever assigned to him?
Jerry and Rich took the other boy the night before. They were gone for hours before they came back, but the boy wasn't with them.
Sam never knew his name and never would, but his face would be there to haunt him for the rest of his life. Added to the list of people he couldn't save, himself among them.
In the morning, right as the sun rose, he was pulled from the motel and taken to a farmhouse.
Jerry herded him inside and cut the sleeves from his t-shirt while the man inside asked, "Which one?"
"Liu's on one shoulder. Davies' on the other."
The man's eyebrows raised and he browsed through a crate of branding irons, removing two of them. He set the ends of them into the orange flames of his fireplace. "It's been awhile since they've split a kid," he said. "What's the occasion?"
Sam found it difficult to keep his breathing even. They were going to brand him like an animal.
They were going to brand him twice. Give him another reminder that his body no longer belonged to him. First the tattoo of a number—his number—and now the brands of his owners.
It hurt to even think of that word. To think that he was just another person's property (two people, but minor details).
The man took the first branding iron out of the fire when the metal turned white-hot. He walked towards Sam with a grin while Jerry shoved a stick into his mouth.
"Bite down," he said.
Sam did, but the stick almost fell out of his mouth when the iron touched his shoulder, the pain blinding him until the world was white. He didn't know if he tried to scream, wouldn't have felt the shock collar go off if he had. Not with the sensation of his skin on fire.
The immediate wave of agony eased only slightly when the iron was pulled away (Sam swore that odd smell in the room was his burned skin). Before he had time to collect himself, the other iron was pulled out of the fire and pressed against his opposite shoulder.
His world faded from white to black when he body decided to grant him the mercy of unconsciousness to spare him from the pain.
"Nebraska," Caleb said. "Last call was made around Lincoln this morning."
"The drive there will take over twenty hours," John said. "Are you positive?"
Caleb shrugged. "Cell trackers are still pretty new, so there's no way to be one hundred percent positive, but I'm as certain as I can be. And believe me, I wish I could give you a concrete answer."
Dean sat on the motel bed with his duffle bag next to him. No use in doing anything else when they would be back on the road in no time. When he needed them to be back on the road and on their way to Sam.
"I guess we should get started," John said. "Long trip, and the only stops we're making are those absolutely necessary. We need to shave as much time off as possible."
To get there before it's too late, Dean added in his mind.
John had Caleb take the first driving shift (Dean assumed that he would not be in the rotation at all). They stopped at a Gas 'n Sip to fuel up, and Dean slipped some of Sam's favorite candy bars into his pockets. The kid would probably need something good when they found him.
Looking at his father asleep against the passenger side window, Dean couldn't remember the last time he had a decent rest. Maybe he should follow John's lead and recharge before they get to Nebraska so that he could be ready to face anything Sam needed him to.
But when he closed his eyes, all he saw was a bloodied motel room with no Sam to be found.
His shoulders still burned when he woke up. The doors at the back of the van were opened and Jerry dragged him out onto the ground.
Somehow, while he was out, Jerry drove to a private jet's airstrip. The people who bought Sam clearly bought other children considering that a line of them waiting to board the jet, all with their hands bound and in simple, dirty clothes.
None of them glanced at Sam, but he felt eyes on him. The numbers tattooed on his wrist and the brands on his shoulder felt like neon signs drawing attention to him, despite no one present acknowledging him.
He imagined that this would be the point where he's finally released from Jerry's custody to Liu and Davies, a belief which proved correct when Jerry handed over the remote for his collar—now labeled with '18166'—to one of the non-slaves present. Employee? Slave driver? Task master? He didn't know what to call them.
He watched Jerry leave and wanted to yell and curse at him. Tell him that while he drained the humanity from children, he's the one who wasn't human.
But the collar tight around his neck prevented him from making a sound, so he could only glare and hope that dark intentions would be enough to convey his message silently.
He wished for Jerry to meet a slow, painful death. And soon.
They boarded the plane slowly, which Sam understood the reason behind once it was his turn. The seats were customized to keep all of the kids still. They had straps that criss-crossed over his torso.
The man who led him inside and to his seat strapped him in, but pulled them too tightly so that they dug into his chest every time it rose with a breath. Then came the ankle straps and wrist straps, as if he could move his arms with the way his shoulders burned with every attempt in a way that made it impossible without nearly passing out from the pain.
He ended up in between a girl who had to be a little younger than him and a boy who had to be the same age, maybe a year or two older.
The plane taking off and the turbulence in the air didn't feel much different from riding in the Impala with Dean driving, so he closed his eyes and pretended that's where he was. With Dean on the open road, following their dad's truck with the only worry being that they make it to the next hunt before more people died.
Simpler times.
That way, he could pretend that there wasn't really a little girl next to him sobbing and asking in choked off sentences for her mother. He could pretend that he wasn't trapped in a way that made it impossible for him to offer her words of comfort because his voice was stolen along with his humanity.
He could pretend that the only words of comfort that the boy on the other side of him could come up with to soothe them weren't "Hey, it might not be so bad".
He wanted to tell him that it wasn't just bad, it was awful. They were all branded like animals and marked with numbers like they were headed to a concentration camp. And in a way, they might be headed to something close enough just to be worked to death.
And how was Dean supposed to find him if he was being shipped to Hong Kong to do God knows what for Liu and Davies?
The only thing he could hope for in the cabin of slave children sobbing and crying out for lost families was that the plane would crash before they arrived in Hong Kong.
No survivors.
When they were an hour out of Lincoln, Caleb called the number they had for Jerry. Dean leaned close to try and listen, even if the conversation made him sick. They should never have been in a situation where he had to hear Caleb asking about buying a human being, a child, forced into slavery.
But if they could arrange a meeting with Jerry and interrogate him, he might be able to lead them to Sam, and Dean would do whatever it took to get back on that trail.
Caleb had more of a way with words than either Dean or John and managed to convince Jerry they needed to speak with him in person.
"Where?" Dean asked.
"Sounds like some motel on the outskirts of Lincoln," Caleb said. "We should be able to get there within forty-five minutes."
The sun was starting to rise again and Dean felt like too much time had passed. Every second since he stepped back into the motel room so long ago was a second too long.
He hadn't been able to get a decent stretch of sleep in the car ride either. Each time he fell asleep, his dreams were filled with horror shows created by his mind about what Sam might be going through when, if it hadn't been for Dean, Sam would be sitting in the truck right next to him. Probably annoying him or angsting, but he'd be safe.
They parked about a block from the motel. They formed their plan on the ride over. Caleb would go to meet Jerry in the parking lot, John and Dean would hide until they were able to sneak up behind him and knock him out.
They were so close to Sam. So close, and when Dean found him again, he wasn't going to let Sam out of his sight.
The flight was nightmare material (even without including the actual nightmares that plagued Sam whenever he managed to fall asleep). They weren't given food, so by the time they landed, Sam's stomach was so empty that it hurt.
He worried about dehydration with how little water he drank lately, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad to just dry up before he ended up worked to death. As much as he tried to hold on to the fleeting hope that there was a way out of this, the logical part of his mind insisted that this was it. He was going to be someone's property until his body just gave out on him.
Sam had never been on a plane before, but with this as his first experience, he wasn't keen on boarding another one (except for the off-chance that it would be to go back home).
He was officially in Hong Kong, or nearby in China. It would make the most sense, but he couldn't understand what the people around him who weren't slaves said. They spoke among themselves, but not in English (or Latin, he could have understood that at least).
They were herded off the plane in the same manner as they boarded. Being able to keep his arms mostly still as he walked helped, but being strapped in the plane's chair didn't do the burns any favors. He couldn't tell what the symbols on his flesh meant, outside of the fact that he belonged to someone as a sub-human.
When the ropes rubbed against his wrist the wrong way, the still sensitive skin from being tattooed flared in pain again.
There seemed to be a theme forming in his life: pain and misery. No choices. Forced into yet another life he didn't want.
All he wanted was to be normal. To have a real house and to be able to attend class at the same school for more than a couple of weeks at a time. He wanted to be able to join clubs, play sports, and find friends who didn't make him feel like an outsider. Find friends like Amy.
It felt like a lifetime passed since he last saw Amy. When his biggest concern was his family finding out he was hanging out with a kitsune that they would want to hunt without asking a question of if she was good or bad. Maybe if he ever saw them again, he could point out that just like humans could be worse than any supernatural creature, a supernatural creature could be as kind and caring as a human.
If he ever saw them again.
In the meantime, he was loaded into the back of another truck. This one resembled more of a moving truck, but not entirely. However, unlike in the van, the kids were packed into the back as tightly as they could fit. The closeness made the area uncomfortably hot even before the doors were closed.
After they packed as many of them into the truck as they could, the doors were closed. While he noticed it earlier, the smell of human bodily functions became suffocating with the doors closed. Bad enough to bring tears to his eyes. The smells of sickness and fear. In the darkness, he couldn't tell if it was due to the area never being cleaned (which was likely), or to the fact that sometimes when people were scared, they lost control of such functions (which was also likely). And there were a lot of scared kids packed together.
The grime of it all left a layer on his skin and he desperately wanted a shower to wash these past few weeks (maybe months? He lost track a long time ago) away completely.
But that wasn't about to happen, so he stayed curled so tightly in the back of a truck that it hurt and focused on not adding to the horrendous smell himself. He continuously swallowed down the bile trying to rise up his throat, but it always came back with each breath he took.
Dean hid between the dumpsters of the motel, keeping a close eye on Caleb leaning against John's truck in the parking lot. His father was hidden somewhere among the cars, waiting and watching just like Dean.
He supposed that Jerry would show up whenever he damn well pleased, but having to sit and hide made Dean antsy. He needed to move. He needed to do something. Finally allowed to help to an extent, he didn't want to waste it by simply hiding somewhere that wasn't the backseat of his father's truck.
Would Jerry have Sam with him? Was Sam in one of the rooms in the motel just a matter of yards away? Dean couldn't stop himself from glancing at each room's window that he could see in hopes of finding a clue to let him know Sam was there. It took all of his restraint to not go kicking down the door to every room in his hunt for Sam.
Finally, a windowless van pulled into the lot and parked, and Dean beyond doubt that this was Jerry.
But he didn't expect two men to step out of the van and approach Caleb.
He spotted John creeping through the lot, unseen and unheard by the men. Dean pulled his gun out from his waistband and followed his father's lead.
John got there first and knocked out one of the men, and the other one was about to run until he heard Dean cock his gun.
"Don't move," Dean ordered.
The man held his hands up in surrender. "Please don't hurt me," he begged. "I'll give you anything you want."
They break pretty easily when facing adults that they can't beat and scare into submission.
"You better hope that's true," John said. "I want back what you took from me."
Caleb nodded to the still conscious man. "I guess this is Rich. The man on the ground is Jerry, who I guess is kind of Rich's boss."
"What did I take?" Rich asked, ignoring Caleb's introductions of them. "What did I take?"
No one answered him. John held Rich's arms behind his back and forced him to lead them to his motel room while Caleb and Dean dragged Jerry along.
It was hours before the truck stopped. Hours trapped in a dark, cramped space that smelled far too human, and only smelled worse as some of the other kids added to the mess. Most of them stopped crying a long time ago, reduced to sniffles and hiccups.
Sam felt useless. He couldn't offer any encouragement or comfort. He had to sit and witness the suffering around him, unable to do anything. As much as he hated the traffickers for putting him in this situation, he hated himself for not being able to do more to escape. To fight it.
And now it was too late. The truck stopped and the kids were led off and into the backdoor of some building. Sam could faintly hear the music even out in the truck.
He saw signs towering over the building the kids were led into, neon and in a language he couldn't read. Chinese. The reality hit him a little hard than he expected it would. He was in another continent. It was all real and he was so far away from home that it hurt. This was it. This was really it.
When it was his turn, the man leading the kids off stopped.
"You stay," he said.
Sam was left in the back of the truck, alone, as it drove off again. He recalled something about handling transportation, but didn't realize that he was the only one in the truck being taken somewhere else.
When the truck stopped again, he realized that he wasn't as alone as he thought he was. A different truck was unloading kids at this building. A factory of some sort that looked like it was built in the time period of the Industrial Revolution.
They led him into a room filled with blankets laid on the ground, in sections large enough to fit one person each. The single pillow on each blanket was thin enough to be a decade old. It smelled better than the truck, which was a small reprieve, but it still smelled like exhaust and rust from the old machines filling the factory.
"You sleep here at night," one man said, his English accented. "From sunrise until night, you work. Disobey and be punished."
Sam laid on his back, unable to curl onto his side without hurting his shoulders.
If Hell was real, Sam thought he found it.
By the time Jerry returned to consciousness—with a nice lump on the back of his head—they had him tied to the rickety chair of his motel room's kitchenette. Rich they tied and left in the corner to rock back and forth mumbling prayers under his breath.
And still no Sam in the room or in their van.
Jerry groaned before he opened his eyes, slowly and with many blinks to clear away the blurred vision. Dean knew the drill after taking many knocks to the head himself.
While awake, Jerry seemed to have a permanent sneer. It could have been the result of being taken by surprise and waking up trapped, but maybe he would have a little taste of what he put children through.
Dean leaned against the wall, knowing that his dad wanted to take the lead on this one. Knowing that his dad needed this as a man of vengeance. He started a crusade to find and kill whatever killed Mary, and Dean was under no delusions that he was about to start a new crusade to find and kill anyone involved in taking and selling Sam.
It was easier to let his emotions out in fits of violence, and that was something Dean could understand.
Jerry thrashed in the chair, trying to free himself, but John Winchester knew how to tie some strong knots and none of them gave way
"What do you want from me?" Jerry asked. "You said you wanted to do business. Well, this isn't exactly how I do business!"
"Isn't it?" Caleb asked. "We've spent a lot of time trying to get into your trafficking circle, so we had a lot to learn about your process. I knew enough about how you do business to convince you to meet with us, so I don't think it would be far fetched for us to know that you treat the children you sell pretty similar to how we're treating you right now."
"If it's money you want, I'll give it to you," Jerry said. "Made over a hundred thousand yesterday, and it's yours. Just let me go."
"Begging won't help you," John said, "because it's not money I want. It's my son back."
Jerry looked between all of the men. He shifted as much as he could in the chair, leaving Dean glad that he was uncomfortable. Glad that he was nervous, confused, and scared. Because how many of those emotions did he make Sam feel? How many other emotions that Dean didn't list did Sam feel because of this man and his twisted friends?
John pulled out a photo of Sam—one of the many school pictures he was forced into having taken every time he transferred to somewhere new. It was one from last Spring, but Sam hadn't changed in appearance much since then. The biggest changes were an inch or two in height (which still left him to be towered over by the rest of the population) and shorter hair from losing a bet with Dean and having to shave it off.
Things that Dean regretted now because it made Sam so upset and it was supposed to be in good fun. But now Sam wasn't there and Dean's brain was replaying all of his greatest failures. He saw every little thing he did to hurt or upset Sam played on loop in his mind's eye.
He didn't like what he saw and promised that he wouldn't make bets like that with Sam again. He wouldn't force Sam into doing things that he knew would upset him again. He would be better, the way he should have been.
John showed Sam's picture to Jerry, and when his face turned snow white, Dean knew that they were going to finally get the lead they desperately needed.
Author's Note: Sam is still miserable and officially starting his time as a slave with Davies, but his time with at Liu's will come. At least Dean, John, and Caleb are getting closer. For those of you who like hurt-Sam, you'll want to stay tuned for the upcoming chapters.
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