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The scrape of the key sliding into the lock wakes him. The door opens slowly, its rusty hinges shrieking, and the yellow glow of candlelight fills the cell.
"Back already?" His voice is slurred and his stomach roils with nausea when he tries to sit up.
She's brought her goons with her this time, a couple of hulking, corn-fed guys with blank expressions and meaty hands. They crowd around him in the cell, one on each side, hauling him upright as easily as a child. One of them leans painfully on his legs, pressing the rough edge of the shackle into his skin, and the other twists his arms behind his back in a vise-like grip.
"I don't know how I feel about all this special treatment," Dean says. He squirms in their grasps, just to annoy them, but he knows he's too weak to break free. "Your other prisoners might get jealous."
She kneels beside him on the cement floor, arranging her long skirt demurely over her ankles. Wisps of her hair have fallen free from the scarf on her head, and on her chin there is a bruise from where he landed a lucky kick the last time she stopped by.
"You are not permitted to speak," she says mildly.
She sets the candle on the floor and porcelain bowl on his thighs, and she unsheathes the knife with a smooth, practiced motion.
He tries to laugh. "Wow, bitch, I'm really fucking sorry--"
The goon behind him snakes an arm around him quickly, closes a calloused hand over his throat so suddenly he lurches and coughs in surprise. The guy's other hand is still holding his wrists, and his face is pressed close to Dean's. He smells like blood and metal and dirt, and his breath is hot and sour on Dean's skin.
"Careful," Dean rasps, choking out the word past the pressure of the man's fingers. "I don't think those are very godly thoughts you're--"
The grip around his throat tightens and he breaks off, concentrates on breathing as dark spots dance in front of his eyes. He tries to wrench his arms free, tries to kick the bastard off his legs, but they're too strong for him. He feels as limp as a ragdoll, his lungs burning and his muscles aching from his feeble struggle. The goon behind him is laughing, a low, snorting chuckle that he feels in the scrape of the man's rough shirt against his back.
"It would be easier," she says, "if you would not fight."
She picks up the bowl and leans forward. She looks at him thoughtfully and raises the knife, touches the tip gently to different spots on his chest, a dozen or so tiny, cold pricks before she finally makes her choice. He can't look down, not with the fucker holding his neck, but he can feel it, feel the tug of skin and fresh sting of pain as she presses the blade into his chest right next to another cut, one that has barely begun to heal.
He gasps and chokes, arches his back involuntarily, but her hand doesn't waver. She presses the lip of the bowl against his skin and sits back on her heels, and while he bleeds she meets his eyes for the first time.
"Our Father in heaven, bless this gift of eternal life," she says, and the two men repeat her words in low murmurs. "Bless this vessel and welcome its sacrifice. Accept its suffering for the glory of Your name."
He doesn't know how long she kneels there, collecting his blood in the porcelain bowl. He stops fighting and the hand around his neck loosens a bit, enough to let him breathe, and he slumps against the man's chest, concentrating all of his energy just on staying conscious.
Finally, she pulls the bowl away and presses a white cloth to the cut.
"Amen," she says.
The men repeat, "Amen."
And the hand is gone from his throat and his arms are free, the weight is lifted from his legs and there's nothing supporting him from behind. He collapses backwards, twisting awkwardly when his shoulder scrapes the wall. His vision is swimming but he watches the two men rise to their feet and loom as dark shapes in the candlelight.
One of them takes the knife from the woman and the other picks up the candle, and she lifts the bowl as she stands. Her hands are tiny and pale on the bowl; it's patterned red and white, big roses splashed around the delicate porcelain, like something from an old lady's china cabinet, and she carries it as though it's the most precious thing in the world.
Dean swallows painfully. "I'm going to kill you."
All three of them look down at him.
He turns his head to the side, resting his cheek against the cool concrete. "Every single one of you," he says. The words hurt and he isn't even sure they're intelligible, but he goes on, "Swear to god, I'm going to kill you all."
"There are many of us," she says, her voice clear and patient, as though she's explaining something to a slow child, "and there is only one of you."
"Not -- not just me," he mutters. Darkness is closing around the edges of his vision. His arm feels like spaghetti when he lifts it, slides his fingers across his chest and the blood congealing on his skin to press down on the cloth over the cut. "Won't be just me," he says, letting his eyes fall shut.
One of the men snorts in amusement, and the woman says, "There is nobody else. Nobody is looking for you." Her voice is gentle, almost soothing. "The world has already forgotten that you exist. It will be easier when you allow yourself to do the same."
"No," he says. "Not--"
The door creaks shut, and the key rattles in the lock. He listens to their footsteps retreating, soft shoes on hard cement, and hears another door slam in the distance.
Not yet.
But the concrete is cold and rough at his back, the metal shackle hard and unbreakable around his ankle, his blood warm and sticky on his fingers, and the air -- the air is heavy with the smell of blood and sweat, his unwashed body and the moth-eaten blankets they give him, stale spaces that have been closed for too long, but there is something else. He doesn't know how long he's been here, doesn't have any way of counting the days as they pass, but there are moments when the air changes, when they open the door and a breeze drifts in, and he swears that it smells like springtime.
A few months, then. His body is riddled with cuts from the woman's knife, even the light of a single candle hurts his eyes, and he only stands up to pace as far as his chain allows when he remembers that he needs to be able to run.
From Christmas to spring, the dead of winter to the first warm thaw.
If Sammy's out there looking, he's sure as hell taking his sweet time.