CHAPTER FIVE

"So, the local police have now ruled out foul play." Sam says. "Apparently there were signs of a struggle."

Nyx and the boys are at a bar, and he's telling her and his brother what he's found. She's sitting next to the younger boy at their table while Dean's at the dart board right next to them.

"They could be right, could just be a kidnapping." Dean says as he turns to throw another dart. "Maybe this isn't our kind of gig."

"Yeah, maybe not. Except for this. Dad marked the area." Sam says, and Nyx looks at their dad's journal.

"Possible hunting grounds for phantom attacker." She reads.

"Why would he even do that?" Dean asks.

"Well, he found a lot of local folklore about a dark figure that comes at night, grabs people, then vanishes." Sam tells them. "Found this too. This county has more missing persons than anywhere else in the state."

"That is weird." He says. "Don't phantom attackers usually snatch people from their beds? Jenkins was taken from a parking lot."

"Well, there are all kinds: springheeled jacks, phantom gassers. They take people anywhere, anytime." Sam says as Nyx looks at the pictures — she never likes the pictures that John has with his research. "Look, I don't know if this is our kind of gig, either."

"Yeah, you're right. We should ask around more tomorrow." Dean says.

"Right. I saw a motel about five miles back."

"Whoa, whoa, easy. Let's have another round." He says as his brother starts to get his wallet out to pay.

"We should get an early start."

"You really know how to have fun, don't you, Grandpa?" He says sarcastically, and Nyx smirks as she closes up the journal. "Alright, I'll meet you guys outside. I gotta take a leak."

"Hey." Nyx quickly grabs Dean's hand as Sam goes outside.

"Yeah?" He looks down at her.

"I'm sorry, about shutting down on you before when you were trying to apologize." She says, and his expression softens as he squeezes her hand. "What you said made me mad and normally, I would've just snapped. I was recently reminded of this quote, speak when you are angry and you will make the greatest speech you will ever regret. You know, like when I got mad after you told me you heard me and Jenny? I'm sorry about that too. I know none of it's your fault, I just kinda...snapped."

"So, you decided to stop talking so you wouldn't say something stupid that you'd regret later, like me. That's smart. I should take notes." He says, and she smiles. "And don't worry about what happened outside the motel the other night. After everything you've been through, you get a pass on that one."

"So, everything's okay between us?" She asks, and he nods.

"Yeah, everything's fine. I'll meet you at the car." He kisses her cheek before heading for the bathroom, and she then grabs her sweater before walking outside.

Nyx makes it out the front door just in time to see a guy hit Sam over the head from behind. They're the only people in the parking lot. She drops her sweater and runs over to them. The guy quickly turns around when he hears her coming and moves back before she can swing at him.

Another man comes up behind her and grabs her head. He slams it into a car and the force of it knocks her out. She falls to the ground next to an already unconscious Sam.

—

"Nyx." Sam's trying to wake her up, though it's difficult with the gate between them. "Nycole, hey."

She groans as she slowly pushes herself up. "Please tell me that I dreamed I was kidnapped again."

"Sorry." He says, and she sighs as she looks around.

"I'm starting to feel like Daphne." She mutters. "What is it this time?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen anything yet. Just that guy." He says, and she looks over at the guy who's laying in a cage that's identical to the ones that they're in. "What's the last thing you remember?" He asks.

"You left the bar, and I stayed behind to talk to Dean for a second. I was going outside to meet you at the car..." She tries to remember more after that, but she can't. "My head is killing me, it's pounding." She tells him, and he sighs.

Sam then notices movement in the cage across from him. "You're alive." Sam says as the other guy starts to get to his feet.

"Are you okay?" Nyx asks him.

"Does it look like I'm okay?" He questions.

"You don't have to be a dick." She mumbles.

"Where are we?" Sam asks.

"I don't know." He says. "Country, I think. Smells like the country."

"You're Alvin Jenkins, aren't you?"

That's the missing guy that's the reason they came to this town in the first place. He went missing from a parking lot outside of an apartment complex.

"Yeah."

"We were looking for you."

"Oh, yeah?" He asks.

"Yeah." Sam nods.

"Well, no offense, but this is a piss-poor rescue."

"Well, my brother's out there right now too. He's looking for us, so..."

"So, he's not gonna find us. We're in the middle of nowhere, waiting for them to come back and do God knows what to us." Jenkins says.

"You're a dick and a pessimist." Nyx mutters. "I dislike you already."

"What are they? Have you seen them?" Sam asks.

"What are you talking about?" He asks.

"What do they look like?"

A door starts to open, and Nyx moves back in her cage as far as she can, not wanting to be anywhere near the entrance to the barn.

"See for yourself." Jenkins says as hooded figures walk into the space.

They force Jenkins back and then unlock his cage. "Leave me alone! Don't touch me! Leave me alone!" He yells as they walk into his cage and leave something on the ground in front of him.

They relock Jenkins' cage and pull a key out of a box on the wall. Nyx is watching them closely, and she sees a hand — a normal human hand.

"No way." The brunette mumbles.

"They're just people." Sam says.

"Yeah." Jenkins says through a mouth full of food. That's what they left in his cage with him — lunch. "What did you expect?" He asks as he looks at them.

"How often do they feed you?" Nyx asks instead of answering his question.

"Once a day. They use that thing over there to open the gates." He points at the box that the key was in.

"And that's the only time you see them?" Sam asks.

"So far, but I'm waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"Ned Beatty time, man." Jenkins says.

"I think that's the least of your worries right now." Nycole tells him.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"What do you think they want?"

"Depends on who they are." Sam says as he reaches for something hanging over his cage.

"They're a bunch of psycho hillbilly rednecks, if you ask me, looking for love in all the wrong places." Jenkins says, and she looks at him.

"Thanks for the incredibly unwanted mental image." She says as Sam pulls on the thing he's trying to break.

"Can you reach it?" Sam asks as he looks at his friend. "Try and help me."

Nyx moves as close as she can to where he's at and reaches out of her cage. She barely manages to get ahold of it, and they both start pulling.

"What are your names again?" Jenkins​ asks.

"I'm Sam." He says. "This is Nycole."

"Why don't you two give it up, Sammy?" He asks. "There's no way out."

Nyx sighs and lets go. She could hardly even reach it anyway, and the cage was digging into her arm. She wasn't any real help to what Sam's doing.

"Don't...call me...Sammy." He says, and something above him actually snaps. He falls, and she moves over to his cage.

"Sam." Nyx looks at him, trying to see if he was hurt at all.

"I'm fine." He says.

"What is it?" Jenkins asks.

"It's a bracket." He says as he looks at the piece of metal that fell into his cage.

"Oh, thank God. A bracket. Now we got them, huh?" He says sarcastically. "You want a bracelet, sweetheart? We can get another one and put 'em together."

"Don't call me that." Nyx says. "I'll find a way out of here just so that I can kick your ass." She tells him.

There's a strange noise that sounds around them, and then Jenkins' door suddenly opens. "You must've created a short." He says as he gets up from the floor. "Maybe you knocked something loose." He walks out of his cage.

"I really think you should get back in there." Nyx tells him.

"What?" He questions.

"This isn't right." Sam says, agreeing with her.

"Don't you and your sister want to get out of here?" Jenkins asks.

"She's right. You should get back in there, that was too easy." Sam tells him.

"I'm gonna get out of here. I'm gonna send help for you and your sister, okay? Don't worry."

"No, don't go out there." Nyx says as she moves closer to him.

"Jenkins, this might be a trap." Sam says.

"Bye Sammy. Bye Nycole." He leaves.

"Jenkins." He calls, and Nyx looks over at him.

The door to Jenkins' cage closes and then relocks. The two hunters were right, their kidnappers wanted him to escape. They know that this isn't going to end well for Jenkins.

Nycole walks over to Sam's cage and then he leans against hers. The two hunters sit there, shoulder to shoulder, and wait for anything else to happen. Not long after, they hear a man screaming outside, and Nyx grabs the side of the cage next to Sam. He puts his hand on hers and looks at her.

It's Jenkins screaming and it sounds like he's in a lot of pain. They're killing him.

"Hey, look at me." Sam says, and she turns her head to face him. "You've survived getting kidnapped by a wendigo, vampires, and a skinwalker. We can get away from a bunch of humans." He says, and she nods. "Dean's gonna find us."

"I know." She says, and he keeps his hand on hers. They lean against the gate between them, against each other.

The pair sits there all night, neither of them moves away from the other or says anything. Nyx sees a little bit of sunlight come in through a hole in the roof. That's how she knows when it's morning.

The door opens and a man walks in with a woman. He puts her in the cage that Jenkins was in, locks it, then leaves again. She's unconscious, but she's obviously still alive. She starts to wake up not long after that.

"You alright?" Sam asks her.

"You're Sam Winchester and Nycole Gilbert, aren't you?" She asks as she looks at them.

"Yeah." Sam nods as he glances over at his best friend.

"Your, uh— Your cousin's looking for you." She says, and Nyx sighs in relief as Sam chuckles.

"Thank God." She mumbles. "Where is he?"

"Oh, he, uh... I cuffed him to my car."

Sam looks over at Nyx, and she sighs as she shakes her head. Normally she has nothing, but respect for cops, but this one is starting to get on her nerves already.

The door opens then, and they all look to see who's coming in. There's a tall, dark figure walking toward them, and Nyx moves back toward Sam's cage again.

"Sam? Nycole?" Dean finally gets to them, and Nyx sighs in relief as she looks at him. "Are you guys hurt?"

"No." Sam tells him.

"Damn, it's good to see you two." He says, and she smiles at him.

"How did you get out of the cuffs?" The cop in the other cage asks, gaining his attention. He didn't know that she was there before she spoke.

"I know a trick or two." He tells her and then turns around. "These locks look like they're gonna be a bitch."

"There's some kind of automatic control right there." Sam tells him.

"Have you seen them?" He asks them.

"Yeah. Dude, they're just people."

"And they jumped you two? You must be getting rusty there, kiddo." He says to Sam and then looks at Nycole. "I'm disappointed in you. I thought I taught you better than that."

"Hey!" She whisper-yells. "We probably wouldn't​ even be in this mess if you didn't have a peanut bladder, and—"

"What do they want?" Dean cuts her off.

"I don't know." Sam says.

"They want me to kick their asses." Nyx grumbles.

"They let Jenkins go, but I think it was some kind of trap." Sam says as Dean tries to figure out the lock. "Doesn't make any sense to me."

"Well, that's the point. You know, with our..." He looks at the other girl. "With our usual playmates — there's rules, there's patterns. But with people... They're just crazy."

"These people are psychotic." Nycole says, growing increasingly irritated because she's still stuck in this metal cage.

"See anything else out there?" Sam asks.

"Uh, he has about a dozen junk cars out back." He says as he continues looking at the locks on their cages. "I'm thinking​ when they take someone, they take their car."

"Did you see a black Mustang out there, about ten years old?" The woman asks.

"Yeah, actually, I did." He says, and she nods as she looks down. "Your brother's?" He looks at her for a moment. "I'm sorry. Let's get you out of here, then we'll take care of those bastards."

"I saw one of them use a key in that box earlier." Nyx tells him, and he looks at her. "I saw him take it out when he locked the door after he gave Jenkins food."

"Alright. I better go find it." He then starts to walk out of the barn.

"Hey." Sam calls after him. "Be careful."