2022, September 29ThursdayThere’s an extremely bitter dryness in Russ’ mouth. The lights are disorientingly dim, and the cot is hard. This isn’t my bed, he thinks. He blinks a few times and tries to stand, but he’s so stiff he needs to stretch first. It feels like he’s slept on rocks.

  He’s finally able to sit up, and by now his eyes have adjusted to this awful artificial light. He’s in a cell. The far wall is made of gss, or more likely, plexigss, and is therefore see-through. There’s a dark curtain on the other side of the gss, and it looks quite heavy. Inset into the wall is a metal doorframe, and an extremely heavy looking metal door. There’s no chance he can break it down.

  Across from the foot of the cot is a metal toilet, and on one of the concrete walls sits a security camera, red light baring down into his soul, as well as what looks like a speaker for an intercom. Surely there must be a microphone then, if there’s a speaker.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  The silence he receives in response is deafening. It’s then he notices his clothes, or ck thereof. He’s in a green medical smock, like the kind Mum wore in her final weeks. It’s uncomfortable and poorly sized, but it’s the only modesty he has for the camera – even his boxers are missing.

  God, he’s starving. It feels like he hasn’t eaten in a full day. He tries to reach out to his captors again.

  “Hey, I’m pretty hungry? Could you let me out and get me some food?”

  It’s possible they just can’t hear him. Yeah, the people with a camera on him and a speaker can’t hear him. The light must be getting to him, or the taste in his throat.

  Oh, there’s a bottle of water here; a full litre. It’s better than a kick in the teeth, at least.

  After he’s finished the water, he tries the door. It’s locked, and the mechanism appears quite advanced. Damn it, if he weren’t being watched he might try and find a way to hack it, or something. Maybe rearrange the wires to get past.

  He has to ugh at that thought, he could barely do anything more advanced than pressing the power button on his work computer. Oh, right – work! Fuck, assuming it’s Thursday – or worse, Friday – he’s gone missing. He hasn’t even logged sick leave.

  Ok, so what’s happened? Probably, Russ reasons, I’ve been picked up by the police. But what for? He has to admit, this is very strange for a prison, but all he knows of them is from movies and the telly. It’s not a stretch to imagine that he’s in a prison cell somewhere, right?

  Ignoring the medical smock, of course; there is no way that’s a standard prison uniform.

  Alright, so if not a prison, where else could I be? He idly scratches his belly. The water is already draining from his stomach, so he figures he’s going to feel those hunger pangs again sooner rather than ter.

  He starts pacing around the cell. It’s very cramped in here, actually. There’s little difference between walking in a weird circle and just back and forth between the walls, and that fact alone is distracting him. He can feel the lights straining his eyes, making it difficult to think. How long has he been awake?

  Surely it’s been a few hours by now, surely someone will be down to expin what’s going on soon, right? But who would do this, remove his clothes, and give him an awful medical smock? What kind of cell is this? He doesn’t drink much, and he didn’t st– Wednesday night. So surely he didn’t go on a bender and lose his clothes somewhere, that’s just not Russell Vogel.

  But who else could it be? Unless he was right. If these are the people who kidnapped Stef, did they take him too? What for? They take troublemakers, he’s not one of them! All he’s been doing is asking questions!

  If this really is that shadow organisation he’s been investigating, that just means it’s far less likely they’re going to just let him go now. He’s in too deep. That worries him: he should just hope it really is the police. A small fine is better than indefinite imprisonment.

  *** ### *** ### ***

  Over the past few moments, he’s been hearing what sounds like footsteps moving past his cell. They have an odd sound to them, like something tough is hitting concrete outside. The sound is quite muted by the curtain and the gss though, so it’s hard to get a real read on what could be making them. A person, for sure. The shadows dancing around the edge of the curtain make him pretty sure that it’s definitely a person.

  They don’t stop for him, though; they just move on past. He knows he’s not going to get an answer, he knows that he will continue to be ignored. That doesn’t stop him from calling out, regardless. Of course, he remains alone with his thoughts. No matter, it’s not like he’s unused to being overlooked by the people in his life.

  After a few minutes, the footsteps seem to return, albeit going the opposite direction. Once again he is ignored, even though he politely raised his voice. He bangs against the gss, but it must be muffled by the curtain. What’s the point of keeping him here just to forget him? Surely it would be easier to just kill him if that was their pn?

  He stews on that anywhere from ten minutes to an hour – it’s impossible to keep track of time without counting, and he does not have the patience for that – before he hears another set of footsteps, that same hard sound approaching from the left, once again. But this time they stop short of his cell.

  He presses an ear to the gss, and hears extremely muffled words. Not clear enough to make out, but there are definitely a few words being spoken. Soon enough, the conversation, or something, ends. The footsteps once again trail back to the left, but also to the right? Yes, he can see the shadows outside his curtain again. So it must have been two people outside his cell. Guards, perhaps?

  If there are multiple guards then surely that means multiple prisoners. And if they’re keeping multiple prisoners then he should be able to expin everything, that it was all a big misunderstanding, and he should be free to go shortly.

  But that’s only if this is the police.

  If this is that secret organization, the one that forced Stefan to fake his death, he’s done for. He knows far too much about them for them to just let him go, clearly. He has a hard drive full of missing persons reports back at home just waiting for the real police to find them, and link them to his disappearance. So they’re going to kill him, most likely.

  The thought doesn’t scare him. He’s left more than enough evidence for even the Almsworth Missing Persons Unit to act upon. Justice will be done one way or another. Justice for Stef, for Morris, for Brent, for all those other missing men who’ve been taken by Pip and her little gang.

  The footsteps return to the left, and he sits on the cot, defiant. He knows what this pce is now, and what they’re going to do to him. Hah, police, as if! They thought they could trick him into thinking this was legitimate, some kind of mistake. But no, he outsmarted them. He’s seen through the lies of the organisation, just like his buddies in the Clubhouse trained him to.

  He lies back, self-assured as another set of footsteps approaches, and knows that his capture will be their st mistake. He idly scratches his belly, but immediately forgets about the awful coarseness of this medical smock as he hears a soft whirring sound – the curtain is finally being lifted on this pce. He will finally unmask his captors!

  He is extremely unimpressed when the curtain has finished rising, and on the other side is a woman in a top and a skirt, wearing heels. He was expecting something intimidating, like an armed guard in a uniform of some kind. While he definitely wasn’t expecting the police, he at least expected some professionalism from his captors. While she was kind of tall for a woman, he could easily overpower her.

  Then he registers the taser.

  It’s heavy duty, and ranged. Definitely more than he can handle, based on his studies of them online. Also, highly illegal for personal use in the UK, which is why he’s never been able to source one. The woman presses her taser against something, and orders him to stay against the wall with a sneer.

  Russ complies, with a sneer to match her own. Two can py that game, and she looks familiar. The memory comes back to him as she puts her finger against the fingerprint mechanism, and sets the tray down.

  “Hey, I know you. You’re the one from the Hall; you threatened to have me arrested!”

  No reaction whatsoever. It’s like she’s trying to piss him off. He’s seen her elsewhere, too, but he can’t pce it for the life of him. He tries to picture her slightly stocky build on campus during his investigation – she must be a student, right? – and comes up with nothing. No, actually, there is one pce he recalls her – “You’re also that bitch who bumped into me in February while I was looking for Stefan! What did you do to him?”

  Her face turns to stone.

  “Eat.”

  She backs out of the cell and closes the door. It locks. It sounds extremely sturdy, and she walks off to the left as the curtains once again lower with that soft whirr. Desperate, he tries the handle again and it doesn’t even rattle; the door not budging even a millimetre. He pounds the metal block, and it echoes through the room – but it’s probably muffled by the curtain. Damn it!

  He sinks to the floor, smock chafing and stomach empty.

  It’s not the police. They’re going to kill him. He doesn’t know that for certain, of course, but it’s far easier to imagine that his days are numbered than it is that they’d keep him alive, for an unknown purpose. Maybe he has information they need, and he can exchange that for his freedom? But no, he got to them, he figured out what they’re doing. That’s a threat, and since everything he has is easily deduced from public record, it can all be reproduced.

  So he’s not being released; he’s here for the foreseeable future.

  He moves over to the cot, lies down, and stares at the ceiling. His eyes have well and truly adjusted to the lighting now, and it no longer strains for him to keep them open. He sighs; he might as well get comfortable.

  Just then, the intercom crackles to life. It’s another woman, distinct from the one he’d met.

  “Eat,” the voice says.

  Oh, right. The tray.

  He gnces down and notices what he’s been given. There’s a bowl of what looks like a kind of vegetable soup, another water bottle, and a simple pstic cup of orange juice. It’s completely smooth with no bits, but he doesn’t totally mind. Food is food.

  He doesn’t want to let them win that easily, though. He takes the bottle and leaves the juice and soup on the tray, lying back on the cot. After a few minutes of lightly sipping the water, the intercom comes on once more, repeating the order to eat. It’s delivered in the same ft tone that he’s becoming familiar with by now. He’s not getting to them.

  He rolls his eyes; fine, he’ll eat.

  The soup has gone cold. Surprisingly, it’s still okay. It tastes simir to pumpkin but it’s slightly off. He finishes the soup and drains the juice, before asking what to do with the tray. He receives zero response.

  He wonders if this is what solitary confinement is like in real prisons, run by actual police. He can see how it could break someone, and he’s only been here a few hours. Well, he doesn’t actually know how long; his conception of time has been totally shot.

  Suddenly, the lights dim further and shift red. Is there an emergency? Panic briefly overtakes him before he forces it down. There aren’t any arms; it just feels quiet. He lies down on the cot, sipping more water. There’s nothing he can really do until he pleads his case to whoever’s in charge, or contacts a wyer if this really is above board.

  He’ll just have to wait.

  *** ### *** ### ***

  2022, September 30FridayHe’s not alert, not really. But he is, by any definition, awake.

  He has been for hours.

  The oppressive red glow – just bright enough that he can make out his surroundings, while dim enough to probably allow for some proper sleep – isn’t the cause. That doesn’t stop him from wanting to punch the light out.

  His neck is stiff, and so is his back. His skin is irritated, and there’s a bruise in his right elbow. The bug bite on his belly is still there, because he hasn’t had the ability to wash it properly. The water bottles have those caps you can pull out to drink, but they’re not removable. Do they not want him to shower? He doesn’t understand how that helps anyone.

  Maybe in the morning, he supposes if this were a prison of some kind there’d be set times to do things. Things are very regimented in prison. But surely they have better beds in somepce publicly funded, somepce normal. The cot is like rocks, and the mattress is so thin it may as well not be there. Only one pillow, too. Usually he has a second one, and his neck is still killing him.

  He reaches down, and finds the water bottle in the darkness. There seems to be about a third of it left, he estimates. He drinks the remainder, because what else is there to do? His bdder has an idea. Waddling over to the toilet, he’s too tired to bother standing. Oh, and of course. There’s no sink. Gross.

  There is, at least, a bottle of hand sanitiser and some disposable antiseptic wipes. It feels like a very short term solution though. That tracks with what he knew of Stefan’s disappearance. Captured in the te hours of the twelfth or early thirteenth, and the note pnted on the seventeenth.

  Did they keep him alive in these conditions for all that time? It’s horrifying to think about.

  He heads back to bed, clean enough, and thinks about the woman who kept following him around. Into that café, to the entrance of Dorley Hall, and now wherever this pce is. Could it possibly be some kind of psychological experiment? Like that famous one at Stanford? Surely there’s no ethics committee in the world that would sign off on something like this, especially without consent. Even if he did sign something like that – and he highly doubts it – he would have to have been totally pissed. And he definitely went right to bed on Wednesday.

  He closes his eyes, but can’t sleep. Without a bnket, he’d have to be passed out to get anything. And there’s no fitted sheet on the mattress he can crawl under either. He looks at the camera, red light on. Someone is watching him. He shifts towards the wall.

  God, he feels so exposed here.

  *** ### *** ### ***

  Russ is stirred from his alleged sleep by the sound of footsteps once again. The dim red glow has been suppnted by what he figures is the daytime setting of the lights. He just wishes he could go back home to his bed, to his job, and away from the people who murdered Stef and faked his suicide – and are going to do the same to him soon.

  The bustle outside is at least something new; he’s guessing there are four, maybe five sets of footsteps outside, and the murmurings of what could either be an auditory hallucination or conversation between the guards. He hopes he’s hallucinating.

  The curtain rises. Fuck, it’s a real conversation – someone’s just stepped out of view, looks like yet another woman. Christ, are there any guy guards here? Something must be showing on his face, because that woman again is looking at him like she just bit an unripe lemon. Good thing he’s not attracted to girls, otherwise he might feel rejected.

  She deposits the tray on the ground without a word, not even a command to stay back – although the taser is still pointed directly at him. Probably because he’s still on the cot, lying down. She still backs out, carefully, and then the curtain lowers once the door has been locked.

  Not even a word this morning, progress!

  He looks at the tray, and idly considers the old one was already gone; maybe he really did get a few winks in. For breakfast there’s a cereal bar, a banana, and another litre of water. So clearly he’s not going to want for hydration.

  It’s not filling, it’s not particurly nice, but it’s not inedible in any way. It’s food. Before he knows it, the “meal” is gone. He just has the water, and nothing else to do until around lunch. Maybe he should try getting some more rest.

  *** ### *** ### ***

  He despises these lights. He’s absolutely knackered. The woman came to collect his tray about an hour after he went back to his cot, and he was gring daggers at her. Now it seems she’s returning, at least if the cacophony of footsteps outside is any indication. Eventually, the curtain rises, and she does.

  He doesn’t have the energy for the same level of hostility now, but it seems she does. I bet she got a full 8 hours, he thinks. Once again, her face seems awash with disdain for him. It’s as if she hates everything that he stands for, and that acting as his personal warden is a chore. To be fair, he reasons, keeping someone alive for half a week before killing them does seem pretty borious.

  He regrets being fair. They’ve kidnapped him for Christ’s sake! He shouldn’t be fair to them, he should be furious! But he’s so tired. He just doesn’t have the energy.

  It’s then he remembers she delivered food. Banana, check. Water, check. Cereal bar – cereal bars, there are two of them! Wow, isn’t that a treat?

  Maybe this is more like an elevenses. Just without the scalding liquid one could theoretically use to – he stops that line of thinking. He’s come this far, and if he’s going to die soon then there’s no reason for them not to confirm his suspicions.

  So he finishes the cereal bars and the banana. There’s still a lot of water left from his previous bottle, so he finishes that off before taking a drink from the new one.

  By now, the exhaustion is getting overwhelming. Maybe he can finally get some proper rest? He really doesn’t want to pass out on the hard, concrete floor.

  *** ### *** ### ***

  All he knows when he wakes up is that it’s still daytime, if the lights are to be believed. That, and he definitely got at least a few hours of precious, precious sleep. He’s groggy, sure, but a nice, long drink of water is able to help chase that from his mind. He scratches his belly and back; the itch is constant, and it’s become more of a reflex than soothing.

  Right now he’s reminded of when he first woke up, yesterday. God, has it only been a day? This really is just a horrible pce to be. He can’t fathom how prisoners might endure this for weeks on end – no wonder it’s considered a kind of torture.

  The worst part is the curtain. Whenever it lifts it promises the barest hint of social interaction, and even if it is with a woman who clearly thinks he’s an arsehole, it’s still over far too soon.

  The footsteps outside are much less active than earlier in the day, probably one set at a time, every few minutes. These must be for the other prisoners here, and he idly wonders what they must have done to be captured. From all his research on the missing persons, he recalls the main throughline that all of them were troublemakers of a kind. Not criminals, but not exactly good people. Those reports are probably embellished, though. If someone like Russ can be taken in, well, surely their methods for vetting can’t be that strict.

  Russ finishes his water, and begins pacing. Just as yesterday, there’s not really enough room in the cell to do so properly. It doesn’t matter, it takes his mind off the monotony, even for a moment.

  Soon, the curtain begins to rise once more. There’s his lovely warden. She has dinner, and presses her finger against the doorframe.

  “Stand back against the wall.”

  There’s something so comforting about that simple phrase, even an order, that it takes him a moment to comply. “Hey, oh, God, do you know what I’m being accused of?” he manages to get out.

  Her mask seems to crack for a moment, allowing a hint of confusion to sneak through before it reasserts itself back to that cold, hostile neutrality. She sets the tray down – soup and juice again, he notes – before responding.

  “Yes. Eat.”

  She then retreats out of the room, taser still aimed, before the curtains once again lower.

  He’s fine, he doesn’t need to know what he’s accused of, he just knows they have the wrong man.

  He eats his warm – but not hot – soup, and drinks his juice. He does not savour the brief human contact he was able to have. That would be ridiculous.

  And most importantly, he does not curl up on the cot once he’s eaten. It’s far too thin for that.

  *** ### *** ### ***

  2022, October 1SaturdayHe doesn’t need the bnket for the cold. The temperature is actually quite pleasant. Despite this, he’s never been able to sleep without one. He’s not sure why, but right now it means he can only drift off when he passes out. That’s not healthy.

  He doesn’t know how long he slept st night – or if he did at all – but the lights have changed from the dim, red glow back to daytime settings. His requests for a bnket have been ignored all through the night, but that’s only supposing his captors can hear him. Surely they should be able to, right?

  Every so often through the haze, a coherent thought reaches him. It may not be useful, but even thinking about Stef in this kind of squalor makes his heart ache. That’s about the extent of emotion he’s able to feel now.

  Still, he refuses to let this pce break him. His skin is itchy, the bruise in his elbow is still tender, and he’s sleep deprived. But he’s strong. They’re going to have to look an unbroken man in the eyes when he’s killed; they’re going to live with the fact they failed. He doesn’t know whether he’d prefer if Stef was broken or intact when he was murdered. Each possibility seems its own unique kind of hell.

  Most of the morning is a blur, however. He’s delirious. At least, he thinks so in the precious moments of lucidity. His hands feel irritated, his knuckles are cracked, and they smell like alcohol; is it the hand sanitiser? No, no, that would be ridiculous. Or it should be – he can’t tell anymore. But he’s fairly sure that isopropyl based sanitiser wouldn’t cause these symptoms unless he were to deliberately poison himself with it. That doesn’t sound fun.

  The footsteps are outside again. Breakfast. He feels like a trained dog already; the bell means food. But he just doesn’t have the energy to fight right now.

  He’s already sitting against the back wall by the time the curtains begin to rise, but the taser remains trained on him regardless. Breakfast is the same as yesterday. Cereal bar, banana, and water. More bloody water. At least he knows he’s not going to die of thirst, but surely that would be so much easier for them? Just leave him to rot in a cell for a week and then bury the evidence?

  What’s the goal here, keeping a bunch of prisoners without even telling them their crimes? Someone must want him alive for a reason. Maybe so he can reveal how he found them? Well, he’s not going to tell them how to patch their security holes. If even one man can avoid being taken by this pce thanks to Russ’ refusal to cooperate, then that’s an act he can be proud of.

  Doesn’t mean he’s happy though.

  “Excuse me,” he asks – better to be polite here – “may I please have a bnket, or a sheet, or something?”

  She’s already backing out of the room, though. Fine. Be like that. You forgot to lower the curtain, idiot. I can see the other guards.

  He turns to his breakfast. It’s something to do, so he’s taking it slowly now. Halfway through his bar, she returns with – it’s a sheet! She doesn’t even go through the door, just tosses it through the smallest opening before locking it again. But it’s a bloody miracle!

  He scarfs down his breakfast as the curtain lowers, and nearly chokes on the banana. He doesn’t care. He’s got a bnket. It’s dusty, it smells off, but it’s a bnket. Finally, he’ll be able to properly rest.

  *** ### *** ### ***

  An annoying buzzing stirs Russ from his dreamless sleep. He’s still tired, but feels much more coherent. He wishes that buzzing would sod off though. It’s not quite constant. Every few moments it dips away for a second before resuming. He opens his eyes – it’s the intercom.

  “You guys finally realize you made a mistake?”

  There’s no response except for the arm ceasing, and the curtains rising. He’s not hungry right now. He just wants to sleep. But his warden isn’t carrying any food, just the taser. This is new. He sits up, bleary but curious.

  She’s not wearing a mask of neutrality, now. He can see barely contained rage and disgust threatening to boil over behind her eyes. He wonders what he did to earn such a wonderful reaction.

  He swings his legs over the side of the cot and she aims her taser.

  “That’s quite far enough, Russell.”

  “Oh, so you do know who I am. I was beginning to wonder.” The barb slips out. Upon review, Russ decides he doesn’t regret it. Unfortunately, it seems to have no effect on the woman, not that he can see at least. That’s fine; he knows from experience that a sufficient number of papercuts like that can definitely wound a psyche.

  “I know everything about you, Russell.” She shakes her head imperceptibly. “I know your mother died when you were only ten. I know your– brother left when you were thirteen. I know your best friend left when you were eighteen. And I know what you became when you thought he was still alive.”

  So what? She knew about everyone who abandoned him, and Stefan. That didn’t mean she knows anything about who he is though. But these thoughts don’t give him time to retort; she’s already beginning to speak again.

  “Do you know where you are, Russell?” No, he doesn’t.

  “I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”

  “Welcome to Dorley Hall, Russ. You’re going to be here for quite some time.”

  “Hold on, Dorley Hall? Didn’t you tell me you don’t keep guys here?”

  “Oh so you do have a working brain between those ears. But no, I said we don’t house them. I said nothing about imprisoning them thirty feet underground.” Thirty feet? He’s already been buried. “Tell me, Russell, do you know what toxic masculinity is?”

  He ughs. He doesn’t chuckle, giggle, guffaw, or anything else. He belly ughs at this revetion. Toxic masculinity isn’t real. The sense that there is something toxic about masculinity is absurd; an idea peddled by homophobic and misandristic grifters to try and oppress men.

  But the warden isn’t amused. “Toxic masculinity,” she lectures, “manifests when so-called masculine virtues are taken to the extreme, and are used to hurt women, and other men who aren’t ‘masculine’ enough. It can often lead to social violence, physical violence, or worse.”

  Russ snorts. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me just how much of a bad boy I’ve been. I’ve spent the past three years looking for my best friend, and I think you took him – just like you took me.”

  “No, we didn’t take Stefan Riley. A lot of those other boys on your hard drive though, like Brent for example, yes, we did take them.” He’s surprised at how candid she’s being. He didn’t expect her to admit outright to systemic abductions though – and murder, presumably. “Your destructive actions through your ‘investigation’ have been identified as exhibiting many extremely toxic tendencies. To most, you would be written off as unsalvageable. To the Hall? We see an opportunity.”

  “What, are you going to ‘reform’ me or something?” His incredulity is thick enough for a knife.

  She smirks, “Yes. This programme takes bad people, especially vulnerable people, and provides them the abilities to function in society with empathy. You have been hurt, and encouraged by the wrong crowd. It is our job to rectify your mistakes and show you a better way to live.”

  “And if I don’t want to do that?”

  “Then you wash out. Not even we know what happens to the washouts.” That has to be a lie. The washouts are probably just killed. “Russell, you are here because you got away with things you shouldn’t have. Your friends used money and influence behind the scenes to protect you from consequences. Hip-checking people on stairs like you’re pying a game of hockey isn’t something a well-adjusted adult does. You cannot tell me you’d never expect consequences for that.”

  “As I seem to recall it, you were the one who hit me. Don’t bme the victim because you couldn’t keep your eyes in the front of your head.” The absolute nerve of this woman.

  “The security camera footage suggests otherwise. But I think that about covers it for today, don’t you? Lunch will be down in an hour. Enjoy your bnket.”

  With that, she backs out of the room without even bothering to raise the curtain. But now he knows what this pce is. An illegal reform school for troubled people. His mind fshes to different scenarios. Does he escape and tell the police? Or does he go through the programme and then tell the police? Surely by now he’s considered missing. Depending on how long he’s here, he might be decred dead by the time he gets out, and that can cause problems, too.

  But it’ll all be worth it for the national scandal this dormitory will wake up to when the kidnapping ring is finally exposed.

  *** ### *** ### ***

  Samuel George Groves III wakes up, and like every morning, he regrets it. This time, however, he has a splitting headache. A student at the Royal College of Saint Almsworth, he’s fairly used to seeing his peers drink a lot of booze, but doesn’t usually partake himself. That makes this hangover strange. He definitely doesn’t remember drinking anything st night, and that’s not the only sensation causing him discomfort.

  Most prominently, there’s the pain. He aches all over, like he was dragged from the back of a lorry across gravel. Sam’s mouth is also dry, although thankfully it doesn’t have the aftertaste he usually associates with cheap drinks. Maybe he was convinced to open up some of his father’s stock? The odds of that are low: this is Almsworth, not Plymouth.

  What could be causing this hangover, then? His eyes open, and this is not his room – it’s a prison cell. No, wait. The far wall is plexigss, and there’s a curtain over it. The metal door and concrete walls are about the only standard things he recognises from his father’s most recent trip to the States. Of course, British prisons may be different, but this seems ostentatious.

  There’s some water here. He drinks it, and takes further notice of the room. There’s not much here, actually. An intercom, a camera – which is on – and a toilet with basic hygiene products. Sam can already feel that this is going to be one of the Bad Days – he doesn’t need a ck of privacy to make it worse, too.

  And that brings him to his garments – sorry, garment. It’s a green, patterned medical smock like one might find in a hospital. It itches like the dickens. Furthermore, there’s a soft bruising in his left elbow – he’s had blood drawn. Is this a hospital? Possibly a psychiatric ward? Perhaps he told someone, and they put him here. His father is going to be furious.

  Just then, the curtain begins to rise, slowly. There’s a woman on the other side of the gss, and she’s gorgeous. She’s wearing a loose white blouse that accentuates her hips and chest, with a light, knee-length, floral patterned skirt and some stunning dark blue heels to complement her skirt. Her legs are long, and the kind of smooth that if one were to look close enough they’d see their reflection shining back at them. And her face–

  Sam has to stop that line of thought before it gets worse. Something must have shown on his face, because she frowns for a moment. It’s such a small frown, but he melts on the inside. He forces his stomach back into its proper pce. She moves over to the door with her light brown hair cascading down her back, something in each hand.

  She pces a tray on the ground – it appears to be snack foods – and stares at him for a moment, assessing him. Sam’s discomfort cannot be hidden. Then before he knows it, the nurse has left the room and the curtain is lowering.

  Sam lets out a breath he doesn’t know he’s been holding. This is one of the worst days he’s had in a while, and all the food he’s been given is a couple of cereal bars and a banana. Not exactly a full English. Thankfully, his headache is clearing up. Perhaps it was just dehydration – that would make sense. He hadn’t needed to ask for paracetamol.

  Would they even dispense that to a psychiatric patient? Would it conflict with whatever other medications he might be prescribed? He doesn’t want to be locked in the funny farm – he needs to get out as soon as possible, before they know too much about him.

  God, he feels like shit.