WOTR | Book 1 Part V
War Of The Regions:
Book 1 Part V
Masterpost
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They go at a careful pace, either lightly jogging or walking fast, not wanting to tire themselves out, but aware of the urgency to enter the next Region. They’re technically in no man’s land at the moment, the woods an out of bounds area, but they’re hoping there’s enough going on in the actual Regions for the Officials to be occupied.
The Officials are the maintainers, the leaders, the people who live in rich houses in the Highlands and don’t have to hunt for food. John used to tell him and Sam stories about shops full of food that could be cooked in minutes using electricity, hospitals where the sick went and almost always got better, schools full of hundreds of children, all being taught education for free. They were just bedtime stories, stories John would tell Dean before bed, and then stories Dean would tell Sam until he was old enough to realize that wasn’t something they’d ever be able to have.
They’ve been on the run for what feels like hours now, and the way they've gone has been strangely deserted. They’re naturally slowing down, and Dean suggests another break, a way to refuel and reassess the situation.
This is definitely the right way? Sam asks, once he’s sat down on the ground.
I’m sure, Dean replies, not wanting to mention he’s never gone this far away from home before. He glances over at Jo who’s looking tired, weary, and they exchange a glance. She knows it, too. All Dean is going on is a natural intuition and hope.
Dean sits down beside Sam and shrugs his bag off his shoulders. He hunts inside and brings out the loaf of bread, squashed but still edible, and tears some off for both Sam and Jo. They take them gratefully, and Dean tears a bit off for himself, feeling the rumble in his stomach.
Once they’ve eaten, they sit in silence, listening to the buzz of insects and chirping of birds.
“What now?” Jo asks, and Dean turns to her, keeping his face as free of anxiety as he can.
“We keep going,” he says, and then turns to Sam and taps his knee to get his attention.
You feel okay to keep going, right?
Sam gives him a strong nod, defiance and something else in his eyes. Right.
“Okay, then,” Dean says, and gets up off the ground and gives his pants a quick brush down to get the leaves off. “Let’s--”
Dean stops, suddenly alert, and drops to the ground, starts moving towards a tree trunk and pulling Sam along. Sam complies, expression suddenly understanding and serious, and Dean looks over towards Jo who gives him a sharp nod, to confirm she heard it, too.
There’s the unmistakable sound of walking and clanging, as if tin cans are banging against each other. Dean feels himself tense, ears attuned to the direction it’s coming from, even if he can’t see the person yet. He feels two taps on his shoulder and he turns to see Sam looking at him with expectant eyes.
Someone out there, he signs, and turns back to carefully look through the trees and towards the sound.
“Ten ‘o’ clock,” Jo whispers, and Dean’s eyes snap to the left, and he catches the flash of dark green. It’s not an Official then, their uniform when in the Regions always black, and Dean lets the tension seep out of him a tiny bit. They stay hidden, and the color turns out to be a man in plainclothes, not from their Region but obviously escaping nonetheless. He looks a little older than Bobby, but with dark, darting eyes, and Dean turns to look at Sam, signs stay.
The man passes, Dean holding his breath as he goes past the tree they’re behind, and he doesn’t breathe freely again until the clanging of cans from the man’s bag has faded out of earshot.
“Okay,” Dean says, and stands, pulling Sam up with him.
They all stop and stare at each other, breathing heavily, and Dean rubs a hand over his eyes before heading in what he hopes is north, a headache beginning to bloom in his mind.
Later, as the sun is beginning to set, they run into trouble. Or, as it so happens, trouble runs into them.
They’re resting by a large oak, Sam teaching Jo how to say some simple things with her hands and Dean shredding bark off a tree for lack of a better thing to do, when there’s the sound of shouting.
Dean drops to the floor, a routine they’re all well-practiced in, and Sam and Jo follow suit, ducking behind the wide trunk of the old oak. Dean knows from the sound of them that something is different this time, as opposed to the occasional refugee they’ve come across. There’s no panic, just routine searching through the woods, weapons raised and marching like warriors. They’re dressed completely in black, and as they draw nearer Dean feels rather than sees Jo pull her bow and arrow from her bag and set it up. He notices with a sinking heart that they’re the Officials. Dean holds the knife steady in his hand, passes one to Sam who takes it with a mixed expression of both courage and insecurity. He doesn’t want to kill anyone. Dean doesn’t want that either.
Dean knows fighting them isn’t an option, would only end in death, or worse, they’d be captured like prisoners. Sam would be a prisoner. Dean tightens his hold on the handle of the blade.
They’re nearing, dangerously close to the tree they’re behind, and that’s when Dean glances towards the spot they had been sitting in, and there, in the open, is his bag. The bag of food.
Dean steadies himself, takes a deep breath, and then turns to Jo and points to the bag. She sees what he’s motioning at and her eyes flick back towards the nearing Officials. She inches closer to the bag when there’s the sound of a zip through the air, a sharp, high-pitched rush and Jo jumps back, looks down at the bag in horror, which has been split open with the force of a bullet.
Dean snaps his head to Jo and Sam in panic, guesses there’s only one thing left to do if they want to stay alive and free, motions the word run with one hand and then they’re standing up, Dean pulling Sam along by his arm, the sounds of shouting following them and the whizzing of bullets.
“Zig zag!” Dean shouts to Jo, who’s in the lead, and she begins moving in and out of the trees, Sam following suit behind her and Dean stays in the rear. He can hear them steadily approaching, and the knowledge that this is a search and destroy mission rather than a search and capture isn’t comforting, if the low-flying bullets are anything to go by.
Dean tries to match where Sam is at all times, shield him from behind as much as possible. He knows the chance of one of them getting hit is the highest with him, and he picks up the pace a little, jumps over a fallen log and follows as Jo takes a sharp right. He puts all his faith in her to take them somewhere safe, that’s all he can do, and their pace quickens as they start to run downhill.
An arrow flies past Dean’s head, and he sees Jo reloading, trying to take out the Officials as they run after them, but a bow is no match for a gun. Still, they’re not dead yet, not even injured, and Jo intermittently shoots at them while turning sharp corners in and out of thick clusters of trees.
Sam’s pace has slowed, if only by a tiny bit, and Dean picks the pace up so he’s standing next to him and tugs him along. Their eyes meet and all Dean sees is pure fear there, and that’s enough for Dean’s adrenaline to soar and heartbeat pick up.
In the distance they’re approaching a large lake, and Dean knows that’s the worse place to be, in the open with no shelter from trees, and so he shouts to turn right once they near.
Jo does as he says, Sam following and Dean holding his sleeve just to make sure, and they continue to zig zag their way in and out of the thick trees, which are getting closer together as they run. Dean chances a look back and there’s an Official nearing, and he raises his gun in the air, points it towards them, and then Dean’s arm is flying forward, the blade spinning out of his grip, and it strikes the Official in his neck, where his armor is weakest. The Official falls to the ground, and Dean doesn’t spare any time watching, turns back around and continues running.
They’re moving along the edge of a river, now past the lake, and Jo starts ascending upwards, back into the thick of the woods. Dean chances a look behind and sees the Officials have spread farther back now, but a bullet goes farther than running does, and so he doesn’t slow down.
“To the bank!” Sam shouts, and Jo turns her head, bow aimed in the air, mouth tight in a thin line, and Sam ducks to the right and heads towards a high bank with an earthy concave.
“Go in there, I’ll be a second!” Jo says, in between heavy breaths, and Dean dives into the opening that’s been created by decaying tree trunks, brings Sam close to him and doesn’t let go. He watches as Jo runs, crouching, hiding behind tree trunks, until she’s at the bottom next to the lake, and shoots towards the Officials. She starts running back, again taking care not to be seen, and Dean feels a strong feeling of admiration and relief wash over, realizing what she’s doing.
Jo makes it back, sweat dripping down her face, and collapses back next to them. Dean leans forward out of the small shelter they’re under, breaks off some nearby branches, and places it at the entrance. They crouch down low, hoping it will be enough, and they watch as the Officials take the bait and head in the direction of the river where Jo sent her arrow, her diversion, from.
There are five Officials in all, each one of them heading along the river with their guns pointed forward, and Dean counts them once more to make sure, thinks there was seven to begin with. One he killed straight out, one could have been knocked down by Jo, but five is still more than enough to cause them some damage.
They stay huddled together in the shelter of the bank, Sam lying against Dean’s chest, silent and breathing heavily, until long after the Officials have gone. It’s feels like half an hour when someone finally says something, when Jo looks them both in the eyes and says, “Shit.”
Sam doesn’t need Dean to translate that one, he gets it all by himself, and he slowly moves away from Dean’s chest to sit back against the damp earth.
Dean looks them both over, just to make sure they’re safe and not injured and runs a hand covered in dirt and mud through his hair, and says, “We are so screwed.”
Jo takes a steadying breath, looks down and says, in a quiet voice, “Our food. That was our food.”
A rising feeling of guilt and shame sweeps through Dean’s body and he looks away, watching as the sun bleeds through the branches of the trees, the darkness of the night approaching. Because of him, they’re out of food, out of water, and now they are in the danger of darkness.
Sam tugs on Dean’s sleeve and Dean turns to look at him, offers a smile that’s meant to be an apology.
Stop, Sam says. It’s not your fault. We’ll be okay.
“I’ve screwed up,” he says, and Sam shakes his head, and Jo starts to protest that it wasn’t his fault, he couldn’t have known. But Dean doesn’t hear it, it doesn’t get through the thoughts of what his dad would say. Look after Sammy, that’s all he has to do.
“It’s okay, we’ll hunt.”
Dean looks towards Jo, sees her determination, and Dean figures it’s the only thing they can do now, the only way to get them enough food for the rest of the journey to the next Region. Dean has no idea how close they are, if they were heading in the right direction then maybe less than two miles, but there’s no way of telling.
Dean stands, takes the knife Sam offers him without speaking, gratefully accepts Jo’s bow and arrows, and heads into the dark night.
Soon after leaving Sam and Jo to hunt, Dean realizes that it probably isn’t such a great idea. The first challenge, after actually hunting of course, is cooking, and starting a fire in the darkness is a definite way to attract attention. He’s better heading back in the direction they came from and looking for their original bag of food. It’s not safe, but no option is.
He’s as careful as he can be, all senses heightened and each step he takes silent. He’s used to the woods, how to maneuver through them without being seen or heard, and really the darkness is more of a blessing at this point than a setback. He can concentrate on his surroundings now he’s alone, and eyes the lake with purpose before heading further into the woods and losing sight of it. He can’t forget where Sam and Jo are. He can’t take long doing this.
He picks up the pace, bow in his hands, and eyes the ground, trying to remember where they had been before the Officials had chased them. A large oak. He starts running uphill, with the sense he’s going in the right direction, at least the general right direction, and picks up the pace a little bit.
If he looks close enough, there are signs of the chase everywhere. The otherwise undisturbed nature and vegetation has been trampled and broken and destroyed, and they’re easy clues for Dean to follow. It feels like longer this time, to get back to the place they ran from than it took to run away from it, but he finds the large oak. With relief, he starts heading forward, when there, on the ground, he sees it.
It’s a body.
There, next to the bag of food, is an Official, dead on his back, with the blade Dean threw still in his neck. Dean takes a few steps backwards and immediately ducks behind a large bush. He knows this isn’t where he killed the man, knows he was planted there. It’s either a trap or a warning, and he doesn’t want to step into it either way.
He carefully and quickly surveys his surroundings, tries to listen over the sound of his own racing pulse, but he can’t hear anything that isn’t usual for nighttime in the woods. There’s the hoot of an owl, the scurrying of a squirrel, but there’s no cracking of twigs or rustle of leaves underfoot. There’s no one’s breathing but his own.
Still, the Officials had known Dean would return. Something deep and heavy swells in Dean’s gut, an uncomfortable feeling that perhaps he shouldn’t have left Sam and Jo alone. He slowly begins to retreat back, not wanting to go farther towards the food and knowing he has to get back to Sam now to make sure he’s okay. He tries to reassure himself that the Officials couldn’t have been waiting for him, watching him. Dean would have known. He would have been able to tell. But the thought that they are instead watching Sam and Jo is enough to send all of the air out of his lungs and set the world around him spinning.
He picks up the pace again, this time at a run, and finds the way back to the lake with relative ease, again following the path marked out by the chase.
He knows as soon as he gets there that something is wrong.
Dean can see where he had been hiding with Jo and Sam, and the foliage that he had placed to cover them is gone, and there are more footprints in the dirt than before. The light is low now, and Dean has to look around slowly and carefully for any sign of movement or sound. He can feel himself panicking, knows he can’t lose Sam.
“Jo!” he says quietly, knowing calling Sam’s name would be a lost cause and hoping that Sam would be with Jo if anything happened.
“Hey!” a voice says, and Dean turns around, feels all the tension ebb out of him in a crash when he sees Sam and Jo hidden behind a thick tree trunk towards the bottom of a small slope next to the lake. Dean runs down the small hill towards them and places two hands on Sam’s shoulders, panting a little, trying to catch his breath.
“You okay?” Dean asks, and Sam nods, offers a little smile. It’s weak, but it’s there, and Dean feels himself smile back.
“We had to move,” Jo says quietly, looking around, surveying the scene. “There were three Officials walking towards us. We had to leave just in case.”
“Are you okay?” Dean asks, his hands still on Sam, but the question this time directed at Jo.
“Yeah, yeah we’re fine. They didn’t see us. Did you get the food?”
Dean drops his hands from Sam’s shoulders and shrugs a little, regrettably. “No, I’m sorry. It was... it didn’t feel safe. I’ll explain once we’ve found shelter.”
“Come on then,” Jo says, eyes tired and lips pressed in a thin line. She picks up her bag from the floor and slings it over her shoulder. She looks tired, deep circles beneath her eyes, dirt caking her cheeks. Dean feels a heavy sense of sorrow in the pit of his stomach, but smiles at her, knowing that the most important thing is to keep them safe, and make them think everything is okay.
“Lead the way,” Dean says, and the three of them head quietly through the darkening woods.
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