The Man with the Vampire Smile

--Dane

 Dane’s POV

He was about to fall asleep when his cell door opened. He turned around, hoping it was the Lassen lady. She had informed him that she had been assigned to look into the organization the Doctor ran by the FBI. She was supposed to find anything that was bizarre with the organization.

It had taken her a month to do so, but she found the bizarre part. It took her three weeks to get a job with the organization and another four days until she was ready to come and inform Dane about what was happening. She wasn’t supposed to interact with the prisoners but after she saw what had happened to Dane, she hadn’t been able to stay away. She said she would be here for the next week, mapping out the compound and finding a weakness, before returning to the FBI. Then she said that the FBI would come in and rescue them.

Dane couldn’t believe what he had been told. Was this a trick the Doctor was pulling on him? When he’d asked Lassen this, she smiled a sad smile and told him that no, no it wasn’t.

Did he actually have a chance at getting out of here?

When he did turn around, he saw it wasn’t Lassen at all. His stomach muscles contracted. It was a huge male guard with a scar from one check, across the nose, and onto the other check. He no doubly got it in prison. As he roughly lifted Dane off of the floor, Dane resisted the urge to yell at him that he would be going back to prison very soon and that the FBI was coming to arrest every single person in this building. Heck, they would probably need to build a new prison to accommodate all these people. But he held his tongue to keep from yelling out in pain as his ribs tore at each other and to keep himself and Lassen from being killed.

She hadn’t even bothered to tell him not to tell anyone (as if he would make it his next status or caption on Instagram) about her and her mission. It was just expected that he keep his mouth on lockdown.

Not that anyone would believe him anyway.

“Where are you taking me?” Dane cried out, terrified. Were they going to take blood? No. Please no. He couldn’t handle that.

“A shower.”

Dane muscles eased a little. The prisoners were given a shower, if they were lucky, every four days or so. The Doctor claimed that the blood wasn’t the same if it came from a dirty body. He had a lot of strange philosophies and that was one of them but Dane didn’t mind too much. He looked forward to the showers because it somehow made him feel more like a human and less of an animal.

You got to take the shower alone. The guards weren’t even allowed in the room. Dane thought it was because the Doctor assumed the prisoners would talk of rebellion but Dane knew that wouldn’t happen. They were too frightened, or at least he was. Why the guards weren’t allowed, he didn’t know. Maybe the Doctor knew his organization would draw attention and he didn’t want any moles infiltrating. That would be a great time to make a plan. The water would drown the voices.

As he was pushed down the hallway, he smiled. Everyone in a position that held any power, honest or not, was always slightly scared of the people they had power over. In this case, they were scared of what the prisoners would be pushed to do. Scared that the prisoners would rise up against them and get away. Not that that mattered anymore. The FBI was coming and getting them. This would all be over very soon. All he had to do was stick it out for the next week and a half and then he wouldn’t be here anymore.

He was shoved into the shower room with a flimsy excuse for a towel. He tried his best to ignore the crimson stains on it. His mind wandered to the first time he’d been in the shower room. It had been a few hours after he’d made a smart remark to one of the guards and he’d caused quite the argument, one that he was proud of.  Then he had been brought in here. He’d thought this was a gas chamber and the guards weren’t eager to tell him it wasn’t.

The water was cold, like everything else, but it felt good on his aching bones and muscles.

As he was finding himself do often, his mind wandered back to the subject of Lassen and her objective. The freeing of the prisoners.

He didn’t know where he would go. He didn’t have any parents anymore and he didn’t love the idea of going to another foster family. What if they turned out crazy? He hardly cared. No one could be as crazy as his adoptive parents. As long as he wasn’t being hurt or here, Dane was fine with whatever.

But he was getting ahead of himself. He was still a prisoner. Lassen could be caught and the operation could fail. But was she feeding the FBI information? Did they at least know where the compound was? Dane prayed to God that they did. If Lassen did get caught spying, at least the FBI would know where the prisoners were being held. But somewhere inside himself, Dane knew that the last worry on Lassen’s mind was being caught. She seemed too sure of herself and too good at her job to even consider the probability of being caught.

Dane really hoped his instincts were accurate.