⌜ chapter twelve ⌟

There's a ringing in Isla's ears and a pounding in her head as she starts to come to again. The smell in the room is an immediate reminder of where she is, but it's not something that she can really explain. All she knows is that the smell makes her stomach churn.

Her memory of the day before is a little hazy, probably a result of the repeated blows that she's taken to her face and head. Her eyebrows furrow as her nose scrunches, and she groans when she tries to pull her arm in toward her body. She can't move either of her arms because her wrists are tied to the bedposts on either end of the top of the bed.

Forcing her eyes open, she lifts her head to look around the room; she's alone. It's a welcome change, as the two brothers that she saw grab Sam have both been screwing with her for at least twenty-four hours, maybe more. She really isn't sure how much time has passed, she never knows how long she's out after they hit her.

Her hazel eyes sting as her gaze flits toward the window — daylight. She turns her head and is relieved to see the denim jeans still clad on her legs. They're bloodier than she remembers, probably from the numerous slices that are darker than the rest of the material, but bloody is better than gone.

A chill runs down her spine as a cool breeze blows in from the open window, and she lays her head back on the mattress that she'd kill to get off of. The chill factor is made worse by the fact that she woke up the first time as the men were pulling her gray sweater over her head. She's been left in only a white spaghetti-strap ever since, which is far more exposed than she wants to be.

The doorknob starts to twist, and Isla looks over as she pushes herself up, trying to move toward the headboard. One of the men from before walks in, and she pushes herself as far up the mattress as she can manage. She knows it doesn't do any good, but every bone in her body wants to get her as far away from him as possible.

After shutting the door behind him, he makes his way over to the bed, a sinister smile on his face as he looks at the terrified blonde. Tears well up in her eyes as he grabs her ankles and pulls her down the bed so her back is flat on the mattress again, but she doesn't stop fighting against him.

He climbs up onto the bed, his hands moving along her sides and pushing her tank-top up her torso to reveal more skin. She swings her knee up and it hits him in the jaw; she can hear the smack of his teeth slamming together before he staggers back, practically falling off of the bed.

"You little bitch." He spits blood and then climbs over her again.

"No, no!"

Fighting doesn't do much good this time. His knees are on either side of her hips and he hits her across the face, it's hard enough that she knows she's gonna have plenty of bruises. It's not long before she's out cold again.

Isla wakes up in more pain than before, and she looks around the room as she lets out a low groan. The only light is shining in from the window, and it seems to be moonlight now. Again, she has no idea how much time she lost...or what kind of trauma he's causing to her head.

The music coming from somewhere else in the house only adds to the ominous atmosphere surrounding her, creating more tension and fear inside her mind. It sounds like something from a horror movie, which is exactly what she feels like she's living through.

She looks at the ropes that are tied around her wrists and the bedposts, and her eyebrows furrow as she clenches her teeth. After adjusting her left hand and grabbing the rope, she tugs on it, trying to see how sturdy the post is. Looking at the other end, she sees a bit of a gap between the knot of the loop and the sort of egg-shaped top of the post.

The blonde pauses, trying to process what she's seeing through the haze in her head. Carefully, she scoots as far to the left as she can, doing her best not to make too much noise on the squeaky springs inside the mattress. Her right arm is extended as far as it can, and the rope is pulled taut; she then tries to work the loop over the top of the post on her left side.

It seems to have loosened some, possibly from all of her struggling. It takes some time, especially with her arm getting weaker from the strain of holding it up for so long, but she's able to get the rope over the post — her left arm is now free.

Still being mindful not to make too much noise, she rolls onto her right side and reaches up to untie her wrist. Then she gets to her feet and crosses the room to grab the baseball bat in the corner, wanting a weapon with her when she tries to make her escape. The blonde's trying to get her left wrist out of the rope — the bat's tucked between her arm and ribcage — when she hears a muffled scream come from somewhere inside the house.

"You son of a bitch!"

"Dean?" Her mouth forms the word, but her voice is entirely inaudible.

Her hazel eyes land on the window again, and she clenches her teeth as her eyebrows furrow. All she wants is to get the hell out of there, to run as far from this place as quickly as possible. She inhales deeply and then blows out through her mouth as she turns to face the door. Getting out to the living room without making too much noise is no easy feat.

"Lee." The oldest is handing a chain with a key hanging from the end to one of his sons. "Go do it." He tells him, and then she sees Dean.

As soon as her hazel eyes land on him, and she sees the pain and fear twisted into his expression, she feels the adrenaline taking over as it pumps through her body. She can hear the blood pumping in her ears as her jaw tightens.

"Don't let him out though." The father continues. "Shoot him in the cage."

"What?" Dean questions as the son turns around to follow his order. "I thought you said you were gonna hunt him, you were gonna give him a fighting chance."

"Lee!" The dad looks from Dean to his son again. "When you're done with the boy, shoot the bitch too. We got to clean this mess up before any more cops come running around here."

Lee starts out of the room with a rifle in hand, but he doesn't make it very far before he's hit in the center of his abdomen with something hard. He grunts as the air leaves his lungs, and he falls backward dropping the rifle in the process; it skids across the floor.

His family spins around as Isla swings the bat again, but she's not aiming for any of them. She hits a jar on the table near the entrance, and it sends glass and teeth flying through the air, straight at the other brother. The little girl throws her knife at the blonde, but she moves just in time for the blade to stick in the wood behind her.

Isla pulls the small knife from the wall and chucks it across the room as hard as she can, and the blade embeds itself in the father's shoulder. He lets out a pain-filled scream as he drops the white-hot fireplace poker to the ground as his feet. The little girl lunges at her, and Isla quickly raises her foot and kicks her back, making her scream as she lands on the floor with a thud.

Lee's still on the ground, trying to fill his lungs with air, and his brother goes after Isla. She swings the bat again, hitting his hands which were reaching for her. The blonde's attention is pulled back to the daughter, and the man dives for the gun as Isla shoves the kid into a nearby closet. She gets the rope that was tied around her wrist looped around the handles enough that the hold should keep the girl there for awhile.

"Isla!" Dean yells, and she sees the brothers out of the corner of her eye.

The blonde drops just in time to avoid getting shot, and she grabs the baseball bat as she quickly moves across the floor into another room. Another gunshot rings through the air, and Dean hears her hiss the word shit before clanging makes hearing anything more from her impossible.

"If you hurt her, I'll kill you, I swear." Dean says as he looks from the brothers to their father; none of them seem the slightest bit concerned with getting the kid. "I'll kill you all. I will kill you all!"

The brothers start into the other room, and she keeps quiet as they unknowingly walk right past her. Once the second one goes by, she punches the back of his knee, causing it to buckle and him to fall forward. He takes his brother down with him, and she quickly runs back into the other room. She slams the closet door shut again and ties it tighter, knowing — hoping — that they won't shoot at her when they know that their sister is on the other side of the thin door.

Taking the knife that she swiped from the other room, Isla runs over to Dean and cuts the ropes that are keeping him tied up in a chair. She then presses the handle of the knife into his palm, and they both get to their feet. They see the father grabbing another gun from where Lee got his, and Isla grabs Dean's free hand with her own.

"We need the key that—"

"Got it." Isla pulls his arm, and they start running as one of the sons shoots at them.

"The barn!" He yells as soon as they make it outside, and she runs in the direction that he tells her to.

The blonde slides as she tries to stop running when she comes across two cages inside the barn, and she then tosses the key that she picked up from the floor of the house over to Dean. She sees movement out of the corner of her eye, and she turns to find Sam looking at her as he's hunched over in the cage on her right.

"Isla!" He grabs the bars of the cage as he looks at the blood that's all over her. "Dean said that you got grabbed too. I thought you went back inside to look for something."

"I saw Lee hit you over the head and ran back for you." She tells him as the doors of the cages open.

"What the hell..." He shakes his head as he looks at her after exiting the cage. "You look like someone from The Sandlot went to prom with Carrie White."

"Uh-huh." She nods. "We gotta hide. They're still after us."

—

Isla looks at Lee as he tries desperately to cock the gun in his hand, but it's jammed. "Now who's the bitch?" The blonde asks as she twists the bat with one hand, and it rolls over the back of it before stopping in her palm. She swings the wooden bat and it collides with the side of his ribs, causing him to groan as he doubles over. "Bitch."

Dean walks over and drags him into the cages before locking him inside the one across from his brother. The father was shot during one of the many altercations, and it killed him. The little girl is still locked inside the closet in the house.

"So..." The cop that was locked up with Sam gets their attention, and the three hunters turn to face her. "State police and the FBI are gonna be here within the hour. They're gonna want to talk to you. I suggest that you're all long gone by then."

"Works for me. Adios." Isla turns and starts walking away from them, not caring when the boys don't immediately follow after her.

The brothers are a few feet behind Isla, and they both look at the blonde. She cut a strip from the sleeve of her gray sweater for a makeshift tourniquet above the spot on her arm that's bleeding. When Dean heard her cuss inside the house after they shot at her — the bullet grazed the outside of her right arm. And she put her head through the neck hole of her sweater, but it's bunched up on her shoulders because her arms hurt too much to try putting it on any better.

"She looks like hell." Sam mutters, shaking his head. "Again."

"You really didn't know that she was taken too?"

"No, they didn't keep her in the barn."

"Most of the blood was already there when she came out and saved my ass." Dean tells him. "I think her arm is the only new injury."

"What do you think they did to her?"

"Who the hell knows with those sick bastards." He sighs. "Isla!" He calls, but she doesn't acknowledge him.

"You don't think she's still pissed about whatever she wouldn't talk about before?" Sam asks, and his brother glances at him before jogging to catch up with the blonde.

"Hey." Dean gets her attention when he's at her side, and she jumps as she looks up at him for a second. She wasn't ignoring him, she didn't hear him. "I know it's a stupid question, but how are you doing?"

"I'm fine."

"That's a load of shit." He shakes his head.

"I'm fine until the adrenaline wears off. How's that?" She says, and he takes a deep breath as he looks at her. "How long was it anyway?"

"Two days." He tells her, and she nods. "You didn't know?"

"Blacked out a lot. I think I have a concussion." The blonde says. "I may puke before we get to the car."

"Slow down a second."

"What? No. I wanna get to the car so we can go to the motel."

"Will you stop being difficult?" He gets in front of her, and she sighs as she looks at him, both of them now stopped in the middle of the road.

"What are you doing?" She questions when she sees that he's shrugged out of his navy blue utility jacket.

He turns it as he steps toward her, putting it behind her back. "Put your arms in the sleeves." He tells her, holding the top of his jacket near her lower back.

"I'm fine, Dean. Put your jacket back on."

"We're gonna stand like this until you do it." He tells her, and she narrows her hazel eyes. "You're cold, I can see you shivering."

"You're also covered in blood, remember?" Sam says from behind her, clearly amused by the way his older brother's trying to care for the blonde.

Isla sighs before moving her hands back so that they slide into the sleeves of Dean's jacket as he pulls it over her arms and then her shoulders. Once she's wearing the jacket, the older boy carefully takes the gray hoodie from around her neck and throws it over his shoulder before fastening one of the buttons on the front of his jacket to keep it closed. She looks annoyed as she blows a blonde lock of hair away from her face, only to have it fall right back into the same place. He chuckles as he brushes her hair back, smoothing it out around her face.

"Now who's the mother-hen?" Sam asks, trying to refrain from laughing behind her.

"You're both annoying." Isla says as she walks past Dean, staying ahead of them as they leave the house with that crazy ass family. "I'm never working a case that Sam finds again."