HDA - Living in Darkness Trilogy - Pt 2 - The Search

His arms pin wheeled frantically grasping for leverage as Sam tried to stop from falling. His flailing hands brushed a slender limb of an overhanging tree and he tightened his grip, gasping in relief as he tightened his grip and stopped his forward momentum.

“Shit,” he whispered afraid to move for a moment and then before he could move back from the edge, a hard shove in the back sent him falling forward and he tumbled over the edge and down the rocky slope.

Halfway down, he mercifully lost consciousness…

Chapter 3

Seventeen-year old Joe Hardy shook his head as he moved through the darkened trees, his little flashlight bobbing and weaving a light in the darkness. Overhead the rain-heavy clouds moved to obscure what meager help the moon might have been.

“Stupid heads,” he groused thinking of his older brother and Dean. They were at loggerheads, and the blond teen refused to stand around another second waiting for them to break the impasse. ‘Too much alike, if you ask me,’ he thought as he kept sharp ears on the late night noises around him. That thought sent a quirky smile to his handsome young face. He could just imagine the horror if Frank ever made that connection, himself.

It wasn’t that Frank didn’t like the older Winchester brother, after all, they had only met once before and even that had been a brief encounter – not enough to really build up any intensity of emotion – but there was just something about Dean that sent all of Frank’s most basic instincts into a tailspin.

Joe wasn’t quite sure what it was but figured it might have something to do with the rawness of Dean’s personality; that man reeked ‘primal’. Whatever it was, it would be humorous under different circumstances to watch Frank around Dean, but not right now. Not when Sam was missing…

And definitely not when Joe had a very bad feeling that if they didn’t find the youngest Winchester soon, they’d be too late.

“Too late for what, though?” he griped quietly as he tried to follow the trail Dean had blazed during his frenzied flight through the brush. “Talk about cliché.”

Stopping to take stock of the area, Joe frowned and thought about Sam. There was something about the sixteen year old that endeared him to the blond-haired Hardy; maybe a kindred spirit or something. Regardless of what it was, he had taken an immediate liking to the kid – heightened by the fact that Sam had been the one to find him in the closet of that old house – and increased his anxiety to find him.

“Kindred spirit, huh?” Joe pursed his lips. “Okay then….If it was me, running around in these old woods, where would I end up?”

His gaze flickered away from the direction Dean had come. He tilted his head and tapped his chin. It was a long shot, but maybe…

Glancing behind him and seeing no sign of his brother or Dean, Joe made a decision and veered off the ‘beaten’ path. He had a good idea where Sam might just be. The only problem was, he couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. ‘Cause if he was there…he’d definitely be hurting.

Cupping his hand over his mouth, he yelled “SAM?!”, listened for a moment and then hurried on.

There was no time to waste.

ooooooOOOOOOoooooo

“SAMMY!”

“JOE!”

“SAMMY!”

“JOE!”

Dean stopped so abruptly that Frank almost walked into him.

“What?” the older Hardy demanded when his companion turned around and fixed him with a glare.

“If you keep shouting ‘Joe’, after every time that I shout ‘Sammy’, how the hell am I supposed to hear him yelling back?”

Frank just blinked at him, intensifying the scowl on Dean’s face.

“I bet he hates being called ‘Sammy’,” Frank finally said and then pushed past Dean and took the lead.

“I bet he hates being called ‘Sammy’,” Dean mimicked as he followed.

“JOE! HEY!” Frank abruptly turned around. “Did you just throw something at me?”

Dean looked innocent. “Who, me?” He smirked and pushed by Frank once again taking the lead. He tossed a pinecone at the other boy as he passed.

“You’re impossible,” Frank muttered, letting the older man lead the way.

“So I’ve been told,” Dean deadpanned and then shouted for his brother again. This time Frank didn’t call after Joe. Dean had had a point; with all their yelling, they’d have never heard their brothers.

“What are you guys doing out here anyway?” Frank asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

“Hunting,” Dean stated bluntly, suddenly putting out his arm to stop Frank.

“What?” The dark-haired Hardy pressed to see what Dean was looking at, instantly seeing the same thing – a second trail.

“Damnit, Sammy,” Dean muttered as he glanced around. “Why the hell did you go this way?” He scrubbed a hand across his face and then looked at Frank. “He was lured away.”

“Lured away?” He watched the hunter. “You sure?”

The older man nodded curtly and Frank was treated to a brief glimpse of concern before Dean masked it. “Sam’s too good to just veer off like that. My car is just up from where you found me – that is where we were heading. Sam’s got a good sense of direction…if he went there—” he pointed at the trail, minuscule but enough for trained eyes to see, “something made him.”

Frank ran a hand through his hair. “It could be Joe’s,” he reminded Dean.

Dean regarded him oddly. “It could be…” he finally admitted and then shrugged. “But…”

“But either way, it’s one of our brothers,” Frank finished for him, surprised by a quick and approving smile from Dean.

The young sleuth started to move forward when Dean’s hand darted out and snagged his jacket. He sighed, hating the competitiveness that loomed between them. It wasn’t like him to feel so ‘threatened’ by someone he hardly knew and he inwardly chided himself for behaving so out of character. But there was just something about Dean. “What now?”

Dean didn’t say anything. Instead, he tucked the flashlight under his arm and then half twisted, pulling a small-caliber handgun out of the small of his back, where it had been tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

Frank’s eyes widened, although he had no idea why he was surprised. The last time he’d seen Dean, the older man had been toting a shotgun.

“Just in case,” Dean supplied, flashlight now in his other hand – the one NOT carrying a gun. “Whatever sent my brother going the wrong way, is still around.”

Swallowing hard, as a brief memory of his first meeting with Dean flashed to the forefront of his mind, Frank followed quietly. He still had no idea what that thing had been that had attacked him and Dean in the house.

But it had been something.

As the two older brothers moved almost silently through the darkness, each hoped it was their own sibling at the end of the trail.

ooooooOOOOOOoooooo

Sam lay on his back at the bottom of the gully, too afraid to move for the moment. He had no idea how badly he was hurt, he just knew he was hurt.

‘This…really…sucks…’ he thought with emphasis. And then a sharp crack of thunder preceded a heavy downpour of frigid rain, and the sixteen year old knew he now had no choice. He was going to have to move.

Shivering against the cold, he braced himself, started to move and then promptly threw up.

‘Crap.’

That had hurt.

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Disclaimer

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The authors have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.