I Caught Fire || Book 1 of 'I Caught Fire Series'

Chapter 11 - The Great Escapist

My eyes scan over the words in front of me, one of the dozens of files sitting in front of us. I hear a yawn echo from across the desk and I glance over, seeing Sam rubbing at his face. He looks completely exhausted and very sickly, him getting worse with each day that goes by.

Dean traipses into the war room with a tray of food in his hands, "All right, here we go. John Winchester's famous cure-all kitchen sink stew. There you go."

He comes over and places the tray in front of Sam, as he gestures to the bowl, "Enough cayenne pepper in there to burn your lips off, like Dad used to make."

Sam groans at the sight of it, shoving it away from him which causes me to raise an eyebrow. Dean reaches down and picks up the spoon, looking at him playfully, "You want me to do the whole airplane thing with the spoon?"

Sam ignores him, which causes Dean to frown at him, "When was the last time you ate?"

"I don't-" Sam begins, but I cut him off, "Days, Sam. It's been three days."

Dean reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a thermometer. He looks down at it and Sam scoffs at the object in his brother's hand, "Where did you get that?"

"When did you start throwing off heatwaves?" He says, giving him a hard look.

Sam rolls his eyes and Dean takes a step forward, pushing the object towards him. Sam moves his face away and snaps at him, "Enough Dean, please."

He rises himself to his feet and stumbles due to his weakness, his hand barely catching him on the table. I rush to my feet and walk over to him, "The bloody hankerchiefs, the fever, the shaky legs, this is not good."

Sam turns tiredly towards me, "Yeah, well I'm not good... And I'm not going to be good until we start moving again and I can start the third trial."

"Trial? I wouldn't let you start a moped." Dean scoffs, "We're on the rail with this thing, okay? And the only way out of it is through it, believe me, I know. And you know how bad I wanna slam the door on all those sons of bitches."

"I do too. But we need you at full strength Sam." I add, placing a hand on his shoulder. Dean steps forward and looks him in the eye, "That's right, and you gotta let us take care of you, Sammy. You gotta let us help you get your strength back."

"This isn't a cold or a fever, or whatever it is you're supposed to feed." Sam says, gesturing to his body, "This is part of it all. Those first two trials, they're not just things I did. They're doing something to me. They're changing me."

A phone chimes from within the library, interrupting the conversation. Dean eyes Sam for a moment before turning and making his way to the library. I hold my arm out to my boyfriend and he takes it, leaning on me as we follow after his brother.

Dean looks down at his phone, "It's Kevin."

"Finally." Sam says as Dean walks forward and turns on the computer. He opens up his emails on clicks on the one that says, 'WATCH THIS VIDEO NOW'. He clicks in the link and a video begins to play of Kevin and he's in the houseboat. He looks exhausted and so weak.

He looks down the barrel of the camera, his eyes feels like the pierce me as he begins to speak, "Sam, Dean, Avery... I've set up this message with some software and a remote server so it sends itself to you if I didn't reset it with a command once a week. Which means I didn't reset it this week. And there's only one reason I wouldn't. Which means that if you're watching this, then I... Then I'm dead."

My eyes widen and my heart sinks, shocked by his words. We were worried about Kevin, but we just assumed that he ran off due to all the pressure. We never thought that his disappearance would be something much more tragic.