If Victor's patterns were correct, Dr. J had been in the office the last four days and should be today as well. Victor was counting sit ups and seconds while Will slept, considering how he would adjust his hours if he was right about the days of the week but found out he was off a day. He'd still have to base it off of when he woke up. He didn't really have any other metric to go off.

One sixty-seven. One sixty-eight. 

Bob's yellow eyes watched Victor lazily from underneath the bed. Victor had had to give up worrying about the alpha after the second month. It wasn't healthy to stay in one form for so long, but no one was forcing him out of it anytime soon. Each time the letters took him away, he was in wolf form, and each time he returned he was in wolf form. Some, like Will, got an itchy sense now and then and shifted to account for it. Victor always figured the Letters were always watching, and there was no way he was going to give them free information. He shifted enough, involuntarily, when they took me out of the cell. That was probably just as healthy as Bob staying in wolf form, but it was one of the few ways he could fight against them.

Will stirred and flopped over the edge of his bed, staring down at Victor. "Ugh," he groaned. "Watching you be so productive first thing in the morning makes me tired."

"It's May twenty-eighth. Nine thirty-two am. I think it's a Friday."

That made Will sit up. "You've never kept track of what day it is before."

Victor kept curling up in my exercise while he answered. "Assuming Dr. Jay works weekdays only, if anyone sees him today, it's Friday."

"No shit." Will laid back down on his bed. "Good job, Victor."

His approval sent warmth coursing through Victor's veins. Will was a beta, so it was nothing as strong as the approval of an alpha would have been, but other than Bob, Victor hadn't seen an alpha since... before.

"Fuck this shit, man," Will said, interrupting Victor's moment of comfort. "Vic, do you ever feel... just feel like giving up?"

Victor had never heard that tone of despair in Will's voice. He'd heard it a lot since coming here, but never from Will, who until this moment, he would have described as cheerfully tenacious. Victor sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees, looking up at Will's bunk. "What's going on?"

Will sighed. "My little girl's birthday is today."

Will was just full of surprises this morning. "I didn't know you were mated. Or that you had kids."

"Just the one, as far as I know," Will said. "Becky and I were trying for another, when... well."

Yeah, well. Victor could picture Will's family so clearly for a moment, the little two year old bouncing around. If Becky had conceived before Will was taken, she would have had the baby a month or two ago. And she would be all alone. Wondering why her mate abandoned her. 

The images nearly blotted out Victor's counts, and he shook the thoughts of Wills family out of his head.

"Sorry, Will."

"Yeah." Will sighed.

Victor didn't know what to say. He'd never been mated. Never had kids. He had brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, growing up without him. He did his best to not think of them. He suspected that most of the time, Will did the same. You didn't want to think of the good things from before. It made everything here so much bleaker. Victor had seen wolves waste into nothing, thinking about before, and then one day the Letters took them out and they didn't come back. 

"We'll get out someday," Victor promised, though the words echoed emptily in the room.

Will was silent, probably hearing only futility and empty hope. "Yeah," he finally responded.

But Victor couldn't let go of that thought. It was what kept him going. Each number brought him closer to freedom, though he didn't know when it would be. He couldn't think of the past, and he couldn't think of the future. He could only think of today and the numbers.

The block's door clicked and banged open and two Blockheads stomped their way up to Victor and Will's cell. "You," one grunted, pointing at Victor. "Come on."

Victor remained sitting for a moment, but before the Blockheads forced their way in to make him comply, he stood and held his hands out to be bound. Resisting took too much energy. And if they knocked him out before he got wherever they were taking him, he'd miss out on any possible information he could gather. And they'd mess up his count. Once bound, the Blockhead unlocked the door and slid it open, clanging it closed behind Victor.

Will's question echoed in Victor's mind as the Blockheads reopened the block's door. Do you ever feel... just feel like giving up?

No, Victor should have said. He did his best to not feel anything.