I Saw the Lights Go Out

Inexplicable

violence warning!

Emma was staring at him. She'd shooed Phil out of the room shortly after their conversation came to an abrupt ending, and Dan wasn't sure if he was relieved or not. He didn't like being unsure. Dan had kept perfect eye contact as she'd deliberately pulled the chair directly into Dan's line of sight and sat down. Twenty-four minutes and nine seconds later and exactly no words have been exchanged between them, but Dan knew they were coming. Quite frankly, he'd considered breaking the silence himself but that would mean losing, and Dan doesn't lose. So, he sat in relatively calm silence, mentally listing all of the different ways he could kill Emma with just a thumb tack - 57 and counting. There was no noise, just the sound of their steady breathing as they glared at each other, both refusing to succumb to the other. Dan could also hear the guards chatting about their girlfriends and the best foods to order from the cafeteria outside, but that was irrelevant. Dan didn't really care about Joanne's success in the medical field, and he certainly didn't care if the pasta was better than the stew. Also, Emma couldn't know that he could hear that.

Emma cleared her throat, Dan knew he had won. "Are you ready to tell us where our friends are?"

Dan smirked, "what time is it?"

"I'm asking the questions."

"Well clearly not since I've just asked one"

She scowled, her face turning a lovely shade of red and if this were an old style cartoon, Dan was sure smoke would be coming out of her ears.

"Do you enjoy being an annoying cunt?" She seethed, pushing her fringe out of her face where it had fallen.

"Its my favourite pass time" Dan agreed, suppressing the urge laugh at the expression on Emma's face.

"Look-"

"How am I supposed to tell you if I don't even know who your friends are?" Dan interrupted, knowing the interruption would annoy her even more. It wasn't a complete lie, he knew they wanted Zoe, but the word "friends" as a plural suggests there is more than one friend, and Dan really didn't know who the others were.

Emma sighed and pulled two pictures from inside her jacket pocket, she went to hand them to him before realising that his hands were quite literally tied and slid them across the floor. Indeed, one of the pictures was of Zoe, only she looked younger in this picture, her hair was shorter and she was wearing a grey shirt and camo pants. Rebel uniform. The second was a picture of PJ with a man Dan didn't know, he was smiling as he pretended to shoot the other person in the photo. Again, he looked younger; the curls atop his head more unruly and wild. He was wearing a camo t-shirt and a pair of plain jeans.

"You know them." It wasn't a question.

"Yes." Dan admitted, deciding that lying would be fruitless in this situation. He looked away from the pictures, a sudden guilt eating away at his insides. He had taken them away from these lives. He'd taken away their smiles, it was his fault they were now under mind control.

"Then you can tell us where they are." She seemed hopeful, and Dan almost felt guilty for what he said next.

"No..."

"What do you mean, no?! Of course you can!" She had stood up, the chair clattering to the floor behind her with an echoing crack.

"I can't tell you because I don't know."

Smack! "Yes you do!" She yelled, hitting him again and again. "You do know!" Dan could feel his face swelling as she sat down, warm blood trickled down his chin and onto his neck, pooling in his collarbones. He spat, blood and mucus staining the cold floor. All that could be heard was the heavy breathing of Emma and the slightly pained hitches in Dan's breath as he slowly turned his head back around to stare Emma in the eye.