Fic: Shadows and Dust (SPN, Gen, R) -- Chapter Three
There was a high-tech electronic steel door at one end of the training area, which Dean’s guards were able to access with their wrist controllers. It led through to what Dean immediately dubbed ‘backstage’, a narrow corridor with doors coming off it on one side and on the other side, a tunnel that led toward an iron gate. Through it, Dean could see bleachers that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a Cowboys game. The stadium looked packed and the thrum of excited chatter was audible.
Dean was marched past the tunnel and taken to a holding area where he was locked in with all the rest of the captive hunters. It was the first time they’d all been left together unsupervised. Dean swept his eyes quickly over the cell and noted the six security cameras mounted on the ceiling. He spun slowly and took in all the hunters before fixing his gaze on one particular hunter and smiling widely, his eyes flat and cold.
“Hi Walt,” he said.
Walt swallowed and took a small backwards step before he could stop himself.
“Security cameras,” Grady warned, pointing.
Dean turned his back on Walt. “Annie,” he said, moving over beside her. “How are you?”
Annie grinned, her usual flirtatious smile. “Well I’m still kicking. So good, I guess. How you been, Dean?” She put a hand to his upper arm and leaned up for a kiss.
Their lips had barely touched when Annie gasped and flinched away.
“No fraternizing!” shouted a voice from outside the holding area.
Dean frowned as he realized Annie had been punished for trying to kiss him.
“Oh come on,” he said. “We’re old friends.”
“No fraternizing,” the voice repeated.
“And what d’you mean, old?” Annie demanded, smacking his arm.
Dean looked at her closely. “Are you okay?”
Annie’s lips pulled into a sad smile. “Eh, that was just a warning. Besides,” her eyes flashed with mischief, “totally worth it.”
Dean smiled and patted Annie on the arm, before heading to the back wall where Tamara was sitting, cleverly positioned to keep her face hidden from all of the security cameras. She was staring straight ahead, like a battle-weary soldier haunted by something no one else could see. Dean calculated the angles, as if he were lining up a pool shot, and then sat opposite her with his own face similarly hidden from the cameras.
Tamara looked up at him. “Dean Winchester. I always knew you were more than just a pretty face.”
Dean smiled. “So no microphones or sound recording in here?”
“No. But there are guards outside who’ll get suspicious if we keep talking quietly. So. Did you get kidnapped too, or is this a rescue?”
Dean admitted that he’d been kidnapped, but that he was sure Sam would come for him.
Tamara’s lips thinned. “The wrist cuffs? Do not come off. I’ve tried everything. So whatever Sam’s got planned, I hope he’s got some seriously heavy-duty mojo behind him or we’re all dead.”
“What do you know about--” Dean began, but was interrupted by the guards banging on the cell door. “Una, Decimus, break it up!”
“Go,” Tamara said, going back to her thousand yard stare.
Dean got to his feet without argument. He alternated between leaning against the wall and pacing. He watched as other hunters were led from the cell and then brought back again fifteen minutes to half an hour later, always sweaty and dishevelled, sometimes bruised and bloodied.
Reggie. Tim. Annie. Tamara.
Roy came back with a broken arm and blood dripping from a gash in his temple. Dean didn’t care.
Grady came back limping and holding his arm gingerly against his body. Dean got him some water from the barrel in the corner and held it up to the older hunter’s lips while he drank.
“Werewolf,” Grady said. “An old one. Wolf born. Wily bastard.”
Dean frowned. “What do you mean, wolf born?”
Grady coughed. “Born a werewolf, not turned. You haven’t run across those before?”
Dean shook his head.
Grady grunted. “They’re real dangerous. In full control of their shifts. Don’t have to wait for a full moon.”
Dean’s eyes widened. “Shit. That don’t sound good.”
“Decimus!” The guard at the door called out to Dean. “You’re up.”
Dean got to his feet and rolled his shoulders. “All right. Let’s do this. Let’s go entertain the people.”
He was led to the gate. Beyond it he could hear a man with a microphone pumping up the crowd. He heard his gladiator name mentioned and then some death metal song started blasting out of the arena’s speakers. The gate clanked open and Dean was pushed through the gate and out onto the sand.
The arena was much smaller than your typical sporting stadium, but there were still at least five hundred people in the audience, and that surprised Dean. He hadn’t realized that so many people knew about the supernatural. He inclined his head. Maybe they weren’t all people.
Dean ran his eyes over his surroundings until he spotted the small booth, high up in the stands, which he thought was probably where the person in charge of the fucking awful music was sitting. It had a platform in front of it, which is where the MC was standing with his microphone.
Dean pointed at him and then very obviously put his fingers in his ears and shook his head. “Your taste in music sucks,” he yelled. “Next time, you introduce me with good music.”
The music cut off abruptly and the MC announced that the hunter’s opponent, a vampire (the crowd booed and hissed), would be released into the arena. The gong, he said, would signal the beginning of the fight.
A gate on the opposite side of the arena screeched open. Dean turned to face it and watched as a blond man in his twenties hurtled across the sand toward him.
Shit.
“What about the gong?” Dean yelled.
Weren’t they supposed to wait for the gong?
The crowd booed at the vampire.
Okay. Apparently the vamp wasn’t waiting for permission to come at him. Dean wondered if they kept them hungry.
He cast about and spotted a pile of weapons lying in the sand in the middle of the arena. He ran for them, and the clang of a gong reverberated throughout the stadium.
Dean rolled his eyes and continued to charge forward. The vamp was quicker, though, reaching the weapons and picking up a machete. He swung at Dean and Dean went to his knees, his momentum making him skid past the weapons. He picked up an axe on the way past and then threw himself onto his belly when he felt a stir of air, as the vamp’s machete swung again, far too close to his head for comfort. Dean rolled onto his back and swept the vamp’s legs out from under him, causing him to fall flat on his back. Dean was on him a microsecond later, pressing the axe hard against the vamp’s neck. The vamp flailed and snarled, his fangs descending as he arched and bucked and twisted, trying to throw Dean off. Dean sat tight, his thighs squeezed around the vamp’s torso, and threw all his strength into pressing the axe down. The vamp’s neck split open and a massive spray of arterial blood spattered Dean’s face, neck and chest as the vamp’s head was severed from his body.
Dean’s heart was thumping loudly in his chest. He looked up, his breath harsh in his throat, and realized that the thumping beat was being echoed by the crowd who were stamping their feet and clapping their hands. The faded white noise of them rushed at him and he flinched at their roaring approval, at the bloodthirsty chants of kill, kill, kill that were slowly turning into head, head, head.
Dean glanced at the MC who mimed picking the head up by its hair and showing it off to the crowd. Dean looked down at the head. The vamp had been young when he’d been turned, no more than mid-twenties, and he had been conventionally handsome; high cheek bones, full lips, big eyes. He’d had a life. People who loved him. And getting turned into a monster probably hadn’t been any part of his life plan. Dean had no problem putting down monsters that were dropping bodies, but this? Dean got to his feet, brushed himself off and then walked slowly back to the gate. This was wrong. Killing a sentient being for sport was fucked up. And maybe they could make him do it, but they couldn’t make him celebrate it. He stood before the gate, his back to the crowd and waited to be returned to the holding cell.
--
“I don’t like it,” Bobby said.
Sam nodded. He pushed back from the table and went to the fridge, helped himself to a beer.
“Okay,” he said, fishing the bottle opener out of the sink and opening the bottle. “Suggest a better plan.”
Bobby harrumphed. He took his baseball cap off, scratched his head and then flung the cap down on the table. “Goddamn it, Sam!” he said. “We need more information.”
Sam looked at the older hunter then; really looked at him. The man seemed to have aged a decade in the past twelve months and he was still wary around Sam, which Sam wasn’t going to pretend didn’t hurt a little. He had a soul now. Bobby could trust him.
Sam sighed and sat back down opposite Bobby. “We’ve got as much information as we’re getting. Cas confirmed that the Campbell compound has a large underground bunker that’s well-warded against pretty much anything, and your voodoo priestess friend from New Orleans confirmed that the whole area stank of blood magic. The warding can only be taken down from the inside, and no-one gets inside without an invitation. This is our best shot.”
Bobby scowled. “Well I don’t like it. We just got you back.”
Sam couldn’t help his grin; Bobby was fighting this because he was worried.
“Somebody has to go in,” he said reasonably. “And it’s my brother in there. So it’s my risk to take.”
Bobby sighed. “Dean’s gonna have my head if anything happens to you on my watch.”
Sam’s lips twisted wryly. “I’m a grown man. My choices aren’t on anybody except me. Besides, if something does happen to me in there? It’ll be on Dean’s watch, won’t it? And he’ll be too busy beating himself up to come after you. Now, I’ve talked to Cas and this is how we think we should play this.”
Sam outlined the rest of the plan that he and Cas had cooked up and watched the concern and reluctance in Bobby’s eyes turn into resigned approval.
--
The second night Dean had gone out to fight they’d played Eye of the Tiger as his theme music. Dean had flicked the MC a small salute, squaring his shoulders and narrowing his eyes as the crowd went wild.
He’d done well in the first night’s Zombie Apocalypse, taking his frustrations out on the drooling, putrid walking dead with relish.
Eyes glinting and manic grin firmly in place, Dean had become a whirling dervish of death and destruction, beheading reanimated corpses left and right and heroically rescuing Tim from certain death when he’d fallen and found himself surrounded.
As predicted, he’d quickly become a crowd favorite and the guards had taken great delight in relaying the After Hours offers that management had turned down on Dean’s behalf.
Apparently Mistress Zelda (whoever the hell she was) wanted to tie him down and ride him like a pony. Which was actually tempting. Unless Mistress Zelda turned out to be a 400 pound lizard-demon or something, in which case, hell no.
But the news that had really made Dean go ashen-faced, his heart pounding with the need to flee or fight was the news that Amon-Commander of the Legion and a good friend of Alastair’s-had offered a lot of money for the chance to fuck Dean.
Again.
Which actually told Dean a lot. It told him that the humans running this show were friendly with demons and that the witches warding the place were incredibly powerful. Grand Coven powerful, maybe, if they weren’t scared to say no to a high ranking demon.
Dean was actually pathetically grateful to the Lanista and his bosses for keeping Amon away from him, and that was a problem. He didn’t want to feel beholden to these assholes for anything. But just the thought of Amon, with his love of blood and pain, holding him down and pounding into him until he screamed for mercy, was almost enough to send Dean into the fetal position.
So yeah, he was grateful. Didn’t mean he wasn’t still trying to figure out how to escape.
Dean’s next few fights had been easier on his conscience; his opponents had all been non-sentient-Dean didn’t even know what that thing with all the tentacles had been, he was just glad he’d been able to hack it to pieces before it managed to make good on its attempts to get up underneath his skirt.
Now, Dean was in the arena once again, keeping his eye on the gate opposite and listening to the crowd chant Decimus, Decimus. The Monster Gate creaked and groaned and slid slowly open. It was only open a crack when a beautiful white-and-grey timber wolf trotted out into the arena, wagging its tail.
Dean’s eyebrows hit his hairline. Sam was the dog person in the family, but something about the wolf made Dean want to drop to his knees, open his arms and call out, here boy!
The wolf stopped in the center of the arena and turned into a naked man, with dark hair, big brown eyes and a collar around his neck. He stood and stared expectantly at Dean.
Dean swallowed. Okay then. He walked slowly until he stood opposite the…werewolf.
“I am Rowan of the Duval Pack,” said the werewolf. “I’m wolfborn; a pureblood and I do not hunt humans. None of us do.”
So, not a monster. Dean figured that’s what this guy was trying to say.
“Dean Winchester,” he replied. “You got a plan?”
“Give them a good, entertaining fight, but don’t hurt each other too badly; hope they choose to let us both live.”
It could be a ploy. Lure Dean into a false sense of security and then go all out and try really hard to kill him. Dean had no way of knowing if he could trust this guy.
Dean blew out air in frustration. “Okay,” he nodded. “But I’m gonna strap on the silver knife. And if you try to kill me, all bets are off.”
The werewolf-Rowan-nodded his agreement. Dean reached for the silver knife and strapped it to his thigh.
In the background the MC was giving fight stats and Dean was surprised to learn that Rowan had already survived twelve fights.
The gong to start the fight sounded and Rowan bowed slightly, before pulling back and beginning to circle Dean warily. Dean found himself mirroring the other man.
The fight itself reminded him of sparring with Sam, in the final weeks before Sam left for college. Sam’s heart just hadn’t been in it, but they’d had to keep Dad happy, so they’d learned to make it look good, while not hurting each other or expending too much energy.
Of course, Sam hadn’t been naked.
Dean took care to avoid Rowan’s junk, because that would’ve been a low blow; below the belt, quite literally. Still, it was awkward, especially when they were grappling on the ground with their legs wrapped around each other. No doubt Amon was sitting in a box seat out there somewhere, watching the fight with a hard-on, wishing that it was him trying to pin Dean to the floor.
The punch was unexpected and Dean put a dazed hand to his nose when he felt it dripping blood.
“What the hell?” he said.
“I’m mated,” Rowan said primly. “So you can stop freaking out. I have zero interest in you. Besides, we gotta make it look good. They like us to bleed.”
Good point.
Dean slugged him back.
Dean and Rowan fought the full half hour and when the bout was over, the crowd roared its approval of them. They were both allowed to walk from the arena; bruised and bloodied, but unbowed.
Dean tried to put in a good word for Rowan with the rest of the hunters, but they were skeptical.
Monsters, Roy insisted, were monsters.
Dean argued that if they weren’t dropping bodies, they weren’t really monsters; which led to a debate about what constituted a real monster.
Walt said that anything unnatural was a monster, but Grady agreed with Dean that an unnatural creature had to be killing humans to be classified as a monster. Walt then argued that by that definition, Dean and Sam should be considered monsters, because they’d both returned from the dead more than once, which was unnatural, and they both had an impressive body count-which included humans.
Dean couldn’t argue with that. He was a killer, he knew that. Slicing throats was what he was best at. He’d been killing sentient creatures since he was sixteen and he’d hardened himself to it, the way his dad had taught him, the way you had to if you didn’t want to lose your mind. Sometimes there were grey areas, though; Sam had told him more than once that things weren’t always black and white. Sometimes they’d killed things that didn’t need killing. Sometimes the line between good and evil got blurred.
Sammy, though, he always seemed to know where that line was. He could always see the good, in people and in monsters. Dean was more in tune with the darkness. But maybe that was just a reflection of what was inside of him.
“And Sam’s got demon blood,” Dean heard Reggie say. “The sick fuck drinks it too, just like a vamp that oughta be put down.”
Dean had to be dragged off him by the guards.
--
Sam could feel eyes on him as he edged through the shadows toward the Campbell ranch house. According to Cas, both Samuel and Gwen were on a hunt in Ohio and the younger, more distant Campbell relatives and the hired help were playing poker in the outbuilding.
Sam used his lock pick to open the front door and then crept to Samuel’s office, which was locked. He picked the lock and moved the desk and went down into the hidden Campbell library.
He’d been quiet and cautious coming in, but not as quiet and cautious as he’d have been if he hadn’t wanted to get caught.
Bobby had done his part, putting the word out among the hunting community, making sure no-one was hunting alone, that no-one responded to text messages, that they spoke and used code words, and generally making sure that hunters were damn hard to catch. It was over a week now since Dean had vanished and several hunters had reported receiving texts from his phone, asking for their help. The Campbells were clearly still in the market for hunters and by now, they had to know that the hunting community was on to the cell phone scam.
This next part of the plan was tricky. The Campbells had to believe that Sam had no idea that they were behind the kidnappings and they had to decide to kidnap him, rather than kill him. In case they decided on the latter, Sam had Cas on standby to yank him out. But if they decided to drag him down into the heavily warded underground bunker and then kill him, he was shit out of luck.
Sam went through his grandfather’s book collection and took down all of the texts which were likely to have anything on the Rite of Obitus, a Roman ritual to bring a soul in purgatory back to the mortal coil. The Rite was more monster myth than anything and Bobby said he’d never heard of anyone getting it to work, but with everything that was going down with Crowley and the Campbells and the Mother of All Monsters, it seemed as likely a ploy as any for Sam to be investigating the Rite, which required the Blood of the Vanquisher to be successful.
Sam spent an hour in the library, taking notes and muttering to himself (for the benefit of any listeners) that the monsters that were kidnapping hunters must be planning to sacrifice them in order to work the Rite of Obitus.
He stretched then, his muscles taut with the strain of inaction, and checked his cell phone, before getting to his feet, returning all the books to their rightful place and creeping out of the secret library. Sam’s heart was thumping behind his ribcage as he crept up the stairs toward Samuel’s office. He hoped he’d done enough to convince whoever was undoubtedly watching him that he should be kidnapped, not killed.
He never even saw what hit him.
--
Dean had really fucked up; so much for keeping his head down, sucking up to the guards and trainers, and quietly figuring out how to escape.
He paced the width of his cell like a caged tiger, trying to get rid of the excess adrenaline telling him to flee or fight, because neither was an option.
This morning, his breakfast had been served along with the news that, as punishment for going after Reggie last night, today, he was going to be flogged.
There would be no morning training session for Dean today. Instead he was going to be locked in his cell until after lunch (which he wouldn’t be getting) and then taken out to the training area, tied to the St Andrew’s Cross and whipped with a leather bullwhip.
Fifty lashes.
Dean swallowed and fought down the bile threatening to rise in his throat.
Fuck.
Alastair had been a big fan of single-tailed whips; had liked the clean slices they made in human skin, the patterns he could make. There was artistry in a well-delivered whipping, he liked to say, and even though Dean had known that his skin wasn’t real down in Hell, it had still felt real when it split open.
Dean shuddered.
Fuck.
This time it would be as real as it felt.
Dean pressed himself against the bars of his cell window and watched what little of the training he could see from that vantage point. Roy and Grady were both too injured for solo arena combat, and were exempt from training, although they were still being made to take part in each evening’s Zombie Apocalypse. Dean knew from the conversations between trainers he’d overheard that they were having trouble lately catching hunters. It seemed as if Sammy was working the case and had learned enough to figure out that all hunters were in danger of being kidnapped.
Dean retreated to his cot. He lay back and tried to relax, listening as his fellow gladiators were brought back to their cells from the morning training session. He listened as their midday meal was brought to them.
Instead of lunch, Dean got a visit from the Lanista and Doctor Jones.
“On your feet, Slave,” said the Lanista.
“Bite me,” Dean didn’t even bother to look up, just gritted his teeth and endured the jolt of pain delivered by the wrist cuff.
“Let’s try that again,” said the Lanista, “and this time, try to remember that fifty lashes can easily become one hundred.”
Dean could feel himself shaking with the repressed desire to tackle the Lanista to the ground and beat on his smug face. He stood up slowly and stared at the Lanista, letting his loathing show in his eyes.
The Lanista merely smiled. “Strip,” he said.
Dean knew that it was pointless to protest and the last thing he wanted to do was give the Lanista the satisfaction of forcing Dean to do something else that he obviously didn’t want to do. So he took off his clothes, quickly and efficiently, without a flicker of emotion.
The Lanista looked disappointed. “All yours,” he said to the doctor.
Dr Jones had Dean sit down on the cot. First he examined Dean’s back, running gloved fingers up and down his spine and prodding and poking. Next he took Dean’s temperature, then his blood pressure, and finally he got a syringe out of his black bag and withdrew three vials of blood from Dean’s arm.
“Okay,” he said finally, “you can get dressed.”
As Dean put on his ass-flossing jockstrap and his tunic, he watched Dr Jones scribble down notes on a chart with Dean’s gladiator name written at the top.
“Blood pressure’s a bit high,” the doctor said, “but consistent with the expected levels of stress for a subject in his position. I’m satisfied that he’s medically fit enough for his punishment to be carried out.”
Dr Jones signed Dean’s chart, tore it off the clipboard and handed it to the Lanista, who left the room.
It was almost funny, the way these guys tried to be bureaucratic and official, as if they were legitimate and not a bunch of criminals.
“So,” Dr Jones said, “do you have any questions?”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. You seem like a smart guy. How did you get tangled up with these douchebags?”
The doctor pursed his lips. “Do you have any questions about your impending punishment?”
Dean stared at him. “I spent forty years in Hell,” he said. “I know torture. From both ends of the whip.”
The doctor’s eyes gleamed with interest. “I’d heard that,” he said. “Wasn’t sure I believed the tale. What was it like?”
Dean frowned. “Hell? It was hell. You do know you won’t get away with this, right? We’ll get free. And when we do? There’s gonna be a reckoning.”
The doctor inclined his head, his expression tight and thin-lipped. “I doubt that very much. But if there ever is a reckoning,” he smiled, “well, I was just following orders.”
“Try telling that to the doctors who got hanged at Nuremberg.”
Dr Jones’s smile faded. “You should take some time to compose yourself. The guards will be along shortly to take you to your punishment.”
After the doctor had gone, Dean looked up at the ceiling. “Uh…Cas? I know I’ve prayed to you a few times already, so I’m guessing maybe you can’t hear me, but uh, if there was ever gonna be a good time to angel air lift me out of here, you know…grip me tight and raise me from perdition…now’d be the time, man.”
Dean strained his ears for the fluttering of wings, but all he could hear were cell doors clanging open and the stomping of marching boots.
--
Funny, he didn’t remember falling asleep. Sam opened his eyes, disoriented, and a wave of nausea hit him. Whoa. Also, head rush. He tried to lift a hand and couldn’t, but by then he’d noted the stone walls and he grinned, or maybe grimaced, but either way the plan was working, because this could only be the underground bunker.
Unfortunately, he was tied to a bed; and naked under this blanket if he wasn’t mistaken.
At least he knew what was going on, Sam reflected, which was a luxury Dean wouldn’t have had. Sam looked around at the small cell where he was confined and then lay back and listened to the echoing clang of metal doors opening and shutting and hobnailed boots stomping against stone. Eventually several sets of boots stopped outside his cell.
Sam waited.
“Sam Winchester,” said a gleeful voice. “Lucifer’s true vessel. It’s an honor.”
Sam blinked. Was this guy a demon?
“And you are?” he asked politely.
“The Lanista of the Ludus Caledonia.”
“Oh,” Sam said. “Gladiators. That makes sense.”
The Lanista beamed at him. “You know your Latin. But then, you’re the smart brother, aren’t you? You were at Stanford, planning on studying Law until Azazel killed your girl.”
Sam scowled. “You’re a demon.”
The Lanista chuckled. “Me? No.”
Sam licked at his dry lips. So who was this guy? How did he know so much about Sam’s past? Was he a former hunter? Was he a Campbell? Sam didn’t recognize him, but then he didn’t recognize anybody from his soulless period. For all he knew, this guy could be his cousin and his soulless counterpart could’ve been bosom buddies with him for months. Also, screw him for implying that Dean was stupid. Dean was every bit as smart as Sam was and okay, Sam may have ribbed him about being a high school dropout sometimes, but only because Dean teased him first, calling him ‘geek’ and ‘college boy’.
Speaking of Dean. “Do you have my brother too?”
The Lanista’s smile darkened. “Oh yes. In fact, you’ll be seeing him quite soon. In the meantime…”
The Lanista went on to explain the Ludus Caledonia set up and what would be expected of Sam going forward. Sam had just turned down the Lanista’s invitation to sign up for After Hours use as a sex toy, when the guards let in a man in a white coat and-Sam’s eyes widened-Roy.
“You sonovabitch!” Sam snarled. “You stood there while your buddy Walt shot me!”
“Shot you dead,” Roy agreed. “You should be on the other side, in the monster cells with the other monsters.”
The final word was barely out of his mouth, when Roy fell to the floor, twitching and moaning.
Sam looked at the Lanista in alarm and the Lanista explained about the wrist cuffs that could give Agony or Death.
The doctor approached him then and pulled his blanket away. Sam’s cheeks reddened and he stared up at the ceiling. He didn’t think he’d felt this humiliated since high school.
The Lanista’s low, impressed whistle did nothing to curb his embarrassment.
“I bet we get more After Hours offers for you than we get for your brother.”
Sam’s eyes flashed up to the Lanista’s face. “He’s not--” he managed to stop himself asking the question, but he’d said enough.
The Lanista chuckled, but didn’t respond.
The doctor told Sam he’d been tasered and gave him something to combat the headache and the nausea. He told Sam that he’d be brought some food and water soon.
“I’m going to uncuff one of your arms now,” said the Lanista, “and then Octavus here is going to put a wrist cuff on you. Before we start, I’d like you to remember that your brother will be severely punished for any lack of cooperation on your part.”
The manacle on one of Sam’s wrists slid off and Sam dutifully held out his hand and allowed Roy to put the cuff on him. The green lights on the cuff turned to red and yellow and Sam wondered how the cuff worked, how it caused its wearer pain or death.
The Lanista released the rest of Sam’s manacles and bade him stand up.
Sam scrambled off the bed, pulling the blanket around his waist.
“Lose the blanket,” said the Lanista.
Sam’s eyes widened and he clutched the blanket even more tightly.
The Lanista pressed something on his wrist controller and Sam’s entire body trembled with discomfort.
The Lanista frowned. He swept a finger over his wrist controller and Sam’s bones began to ache.
Both the Lanista and the guy in the lab coat stared at Sam with something akin to awe.
The Lanista cleared his throat. “Lose the blanket, or the pain will get worse.”
If Sam hadn’t been here on a rescue mission, he would’ve kept refusing, but he had a job to do and it would become infinitely harder if he were labelled a troublemaker. Besides, if he kept resisting they might punish Dean. Sam could deal with his own pain, but he knew he’d fold like a cheap suit if they threatened his brother.
Sam dropped the blanket, his face and neck heating as he did.
The doctor got out another syringe and a small plastic vial. “I’m just going to take some blood for testing,” he said.
The Lanista nodded and watched closely as the doctor found Sam’s vein and extracted a vial of the viscous red fluid. “Octavus here will help you change into your gladiator outfit,” he paused at the cell door and snapped his fingers. “Oh, and your new name is Undecimus.”
“Eleventh?” Sam wrinkled his nose. “Really?”
The Lanista and the doctor left and Roy sighed.
“Put this on,” he said, handing Sam some kind of leather thong.
Sam looked at it dubiously. That was going to be a tight fit.
“Look,” Roy said, as Sam struggled into the scrap of leather, “I don’t like you any more than you like me, okay? I don’t know what you are, but I know you ain’t natural. But you may be our best shot at getting outta here. What the Lanista did to you just now, with the wrist cuff?” Roy tapped his own. “It shoulda hurt.”
Sam frowned. “Well it didn’t tickle.”
“Maybe not, but you weren’t exactly rollin’ around on the ground in agony and you shoulda been. Maybe whatever hoodoo they got workin’ these things is thrown off by the demon blood in you.”
Roy handed him a leather skirt and once he had that on, Roy helped him put on some strapping around his shoulder and arm.
“Have you seen Dean?” Sam asked Roy. “Is he all right?”
“He’s okay. Started a fight with Reggie yesterday and I reckon there’s prob’ly gonna be some fallout from that, because he wasn’t at training today, but he’s okay.”
Roy left Sam’s cell and, presumably, was taken back to his own by the guards.
A young guy in a white tunic brought Sam a sandwich and a bottle of water and Sam had barely finished when the guards came to get him.
Sam asked them where they were taking him, but they refused to talk to him. He figured he’d find out soon enough.
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