You're Never Alone

Chapter 7

Word Count: 1757

That night as Dan pretends to sleep, he hears muffled voices. From who they're from, he doesn't know. All he knows is that they were coming from the other side of the door that Phil goes in and out of. He shortly falls asleep as the bar of light beneath the door disappears and the people on the other side go to sleep.

    Only a couple hours later, the lights in his room turn on. Dan groans as he's blinded and rubs his eyes, rolling over to push his face into his pillow to block out the light. It takes a few minutes but he slowly wakes up. No one but him is in the room as he stands up and stretches with a yawn. He runs a hand through his slightly wavy hair and "makes" his bed. All he does is pull the blanket up neatly to the pillow. He sits on his cot with his legs criss crossed beneath him.

    Just then a new person walks in with a file in his hands. He has curly brown hair and hard emerald eyes. He wears a black hoodie with a pair of jeans and combat boots. He doesn't smile and he holds himself in a way that makes Dan feel shorter when in fact he's probably an inch or two taller than him.

    Dan watches as the man stops near him and two other rebels come in with masks on and a square table between them. They set it down and put down two chairs on either side of table. They quickly walk out and shut the door. The green eyed man sits down and gestures for Dan to sit across from him. Dan carefully gets up and sits down in the empty seat. Cold ropes of ice wrap around his torso and the back of the chair making him unable to move.

    "Hello Daniel," the man says in a deep voice, looking up at Dan with a look of hatred and pity that Dan immediately recoils at. "My name is PJ."

    "What's with the file?" Dan asks and PJ tilts his head slightly as an unpleasant smile creeps onto his lips.

    "I just have a few questions for you." PJ flips open the top cover as he reads out the words in front of him. "Daniel James Howell, age 19, son of the king, male, brown eyes, 191 centimeters, 80 kilograms, Caucasian, British, born on June 11. Mother died of gunshot wound to the head by suicide at the age of 42 when you were 15, correct?"

    Dan doesn't look away as he responds. "Yes, that is correct."

    "You've killed one person, captured 15 rebels in the past 2 years, and injured many rebels as well." PJ mentions as he goes through the file but Dan has no reaction to anything he's saying. He's been trained for this so he knows what to do. "You've also tried to commit suicide yourself three times."

Dan says absolutely nothing and PJ continues on.

    "All of your attempts failed as you got caught by guards each time. The person you killed was Michael Lester," PJ says, trying to make Dan crack but Dan keeps his face free from emotion even with PJ mentioning his suicide attempts. "In your mother's suicide note she said it was your fault and that you were to be blamed."

    Dan wants to scream. He wants to shove the table to the side and rip PJ to shreds but with the ropes around him, moving is not an option so Dan makes sure to show no sign of being upset.

    "You're just wasting your time," Dan says to PJ and the green eyed man glares at Dan.

    PJ rattles off a million other things that Dan has done. He says everything from his favorite color to his daily schedule to the deaths of people he doesn't even know. This goes on for hours and PJ is determined to make Dan crack but Dan doesn't break for the entire time. After a while, PJ throws up his hands and gives up. PJ leaves the room and goes into the one on the other side of the window.

    "This is hopeless. I literally got us nowhere," PJ tells Phil but Phil is smiling, making PJ confused. "Why are you smiling?"

    "You didn't get us nowhere, PJ. You showed us another side of the prince," Phil happily states but PJ still gives him a very confused look. "Think about it. We now know that Dan is strong and stubborn so he could help us immensely. If we could get him to fight with us one day, we could get someone on our side that the other side has no clue about."