When Danny woke, he found a glass of water on the bed beside his ashtray, what looked like pills at first, but turned out to be vitamins. And beside that, Mari – or Liam, he reckoned – had set one of the meals that he remembered seeing in the refrigerator. The shelf below the blood packets, he mused, though something about the blood loss had made him peckish again. After taking the vitamins and downing the entire glass of water, he smoked another cigarette and picked at the food.

Walking to the windows, he found them boarded up like the ones downstairs had been, preventing him from looking outside. There were no clocks for him to tell the time and though his body felt like it had to be sometime during the day, the lack of reference had him floundering. When he walked to the door, he found it locked. Aside from an attached bathroom, Danny had been completely cut off from the rest of the house. Hell, from the rest of the city, if he had to be honest.

Frowning, he walked into the bathroom, stripping his clothing and taking a shower mostly to fill the time. Nobody had thought to put a television in the bedroom, but a bookcase had been well-stocked with selections. After mulling over the choices, Danny chose one and brought it back to the bed with him. Hours passed, spent eating food, smoking cigarettes, and reading; and though he hardly noticed the shift into night time, it took being roused from a nap before he realized the sun had set.

This time, he heard it when the door lock clicked open, and by the time his visitor entered, he had started to sit up. Mari walked inside, dressed in a different outfit, and frowned at him as she took stock of Danny. “I put some clothing in the closet,” she said. “Are you sure you don’t want to change?”

“Does it matter?” Danny asked, wincing at how fatalistic the question flew from his lips.

“Everything matters right now, chiquito. I can’t stress that enough to you.” She shut the door and strode to the closet, opening it and examining the choices while biting her knuckle with her dull teeth. “You would look good in blue,” she mused. “Nothing too formal. We just can’t have you looking like the inside of a Goth club right now.”

“We… what?” Before Danny could say anything else, Mari had descended upon him with a blue shirt and gray pants, thrusting the clothing options at him. He took them and furrowed his brow. “You seriously want me to wear this?”

“Keep the shirt untucked. Then you don’t have to wear a tie or a belt. Your shoes are fine, but if you want new underwear, it’s in the dresser.” Mari glanced at her wrist, revealing a gold watch beneath her shirt sleeve. “You have fifteen minutes. I’ll be back for you then.”

She marched out of the room without bothering to say anything else. Danny didn’t hear the lock click, but somehow, he knew better than to try fleeing. Instead, he weighed the outfit he had been given, muttering as he tossed it onto the bed. Walking to examine the closet for himself, he picked out a pair of black slacks and when he found a matching shirt in the dresser, he peeled off the clothing he’d been wearing in favor of changing. At the point when Mari returned, Danny had slid on the blue shirt she’d selected and wore it hanging open over his choices.

Mari sighed. “Well, it’s better than nothing,” she said.

Motioning him to come with her, she waited until he complied, and walked with him in silence down a corridor and past other locked rooms. Danny wrestled with the urge to ask if it contained others like him, managing only to keep the question to himself when he remembered that his life could be in peril. At the end of the corridor, two people kept watch by the stairs and as they descended, other people either joined them or passed them by. Running away, he thought, would be impossible during the night time.

It would have to happen during the day.

Mari led him to the main floor, and past the woman seated behind the desk again. She glanced at him and swiftly looked away, bearing such an expression of shame, Danny couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been reprimanded for allowing him in the basement. One of the people keeping watch on the main floor opened the door for them, and once they made it past the final doorman, they stepped out into the night and lingered by the front.

“Don’t even think about it,” Mari said, her voice bearing a hint of caution. “You haven’t even seen how fast I run yet.”

“How do I know you’re not bullshitting me?” Danny asked.

“Try it once and call my bluff.”

Danny bristled, but didn’t answer, opting to light a cigarette and wait with Mari. Within moments, a car pulled up with Liam in the driver’s seat, though rather than sit beside him, Mari slid into the back with Danny. He didn’t bother to crack a joke about not trusting him. That much had already been made apparent and, if he had to be honest, he wouldn’t have trusted him either.

“Where are we going?” he asked after settling in his seat.

“You’ll see shortly,” Liam said. Shifting into drive, he merged back onto the road and as he did, a pervasive silence fell over the entire car.

Mari sat facing forward, but Danny felt himself in her peripheral vision the entire time. As they drove west, he lapsed into resignation, smoking his cigarette and pondering the neighborhood while trying not to entertain the thought that this might be his last night on earth. Soon, the hodgepodge of row houses turned into more sprawling estates and as they approached one, Liam turned into its driveway and paused by the gates.

Within moments, they opened, allowing them entrance.

A wrought iron fence protected the grounds, and as they drove past the added barrier of shrubs, the rest of the estate came into view. The landscape meticulous, it encompassed what Danny guessed was five acres of land, with a large house perched nearly in the middle. Several cars occupied the pavement closest to the house, and as they parked behind the last one, Danny felt his stomach slowly sinking, making him wonder if this was what it felt like to be on Death Row.

As if sensing his worry, Mari reached for his hand and though he flinched at her cool skin, he didn’t move his hand away.

“Stay quiet,” she said. “Speak only when you’re spoken to. There’s a little bit of comfort in knowing you have no control over what happens here. Hold onto that.”

As cryptic as the advice had been, Danny took a deep breath and nodded. Mari’s fingers squeezed his before letting go, allowing Danny to slip out of the car in time to watch Mari shrug at Liam. He shot her a look which prompted her to say, “What?” and though he failed to explain it, Danny sensed warning in the way Liam eyed her. Both vampires turned their backs on Danny, leaving the implicit command for him to follow. Although it left him unsupervised, Danny saw a message in their lack of concern. Granted, Danny thought, he might get to the edge of the driveway. But he wouldn’t get any farther.

“Don’t speak unless spoken to,” he muttered, dutifully following along.

Liam opened the door, holding it for both Mari and Danny before pulling it shut behind them. There were what looked like butlers standing in the vestibule, bearing bite marks on their necks and taking coats without speaking a word. Their gaze distant, they went through the motions in a mechanical fashion and Danny’s pulse sped while watching them walk away.

“What the hell –?” he began.

Mari, however, reached for his arm and looped hers around it.

He nodded at the subtext. Mari walked beside him and Liam guided them onward, providing Danny the chance to study the house they walked into. The estate, from vestibule to a set of closed double-doors poised directly ahead of them, hinted at wealth and aristocracy. White-washed walls with gilded trim extended up a spiral staircase to their right, with hardwood floors beneath their feet. When Danny stepped across the threshold, he saw men and women seated on either side of the expansive area, behaving politer than the vampires who had occupied the basement. Danny spotted the people with fang marks, who seemed to be in varying states of awareness, and made note of the people whose pallid complexions identified them as immortals.

“Is this him, Liam?” a voice asked from the front of the room, drawing everyone’s attention there.

“Yes, this is,” Liam answered, making eye contact with the speaker at the same moment Danny did.

He sat in a large, leather chair, flanked on either side by two men with a third seated at his feet. A woman dressed in a business suit, with teased, brown hair and stiletto heels, stood in the corner, and though Danny couldn’t identify her as either human or vampire, the man in the chair was difficult to mistake. He tilted his chin while sizing Danny up, and although Danny tried to ignore the scantily-clad, fang-marked men around him, his stomach flip-flopped and turned queasy.

“Liam says your name is Danny,” the man in the chair said. “My name is Youssef and I am the Marquis of this area.”

“Marquis?” Danny asked, belatedly remembering Mari’s instruction and wincing internally at the echo of his own voice. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “I apologize. I hadn’t ever heard of a vampire marquis before.”

“One of our aristocratic titles. I imagine there is a lot you don’t know about us currently. What troubles me is how much you do.” He turned his attention to Liam. “Several people say that he walked into a feeding den looking for you. Have you not been enthralling your meals?”

Liam straightened his posture. “I have, sir, but it would appear I didn’t do as thorough of a job as I should have, given the circumstances.”

“I would say not. Have we determined how missed he is going to be if he disappears?”

“Yes, I was able to learn that he has parents who live out-of-state. One deceased sibling and no long-term romantic interests.”

“So, less likely to be missed, then.”

The cavalier way the Marquis passed judgment on his life made Danny wince. As his expression fell, he saw Mari glance at him and though her arm remained looped around his, he fought the urge to wriggle free. Liam’s eyes settled on him and the weight of his stare made Danny bristle, the, “Yes,” he spoke piercing through his chest like a knife.

“I am not cattle,” Danny said before the Marquis could answer.

“I beg your pardon?”

Danny lifted his head to peer directly at the Marquis again. “I said, I am not cattle. I don’t know what the fuck any of this is. You talk about feeding dens and have these mindless drones around you and if you think for one second me ‘not being missed’ makes me expendable, then I refuse to –”

“You’ll do well to be quiet while in my presence,” the Marquis said, interrupting. When Danny motioned to continue, Youssef added, “I said, be quiet,” and this time, suggestion accompanied the demand. Danny’s mouth shut, almost of its own volition, and when he struggled to talk again, he found himself mute.

Liam sighed when the Marquis shifted his attention back to him. “I leave his fate up to you,” Youssef said. “Kill him fast or kill him quickly, either way his blood is on your hands. If I hear of him wandering loose again, then I will exact a much harsher punishment. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, your Lordship, you have,” Liam said. He sighed looking from Mari to the mute Danny, and though Danny saw an attempt at appearing impassive, it was obvious Liam felt chagrined. He nodded at them, and as Danny strained to issue a hundred objections, his inability to speak made him only angrier, more apt to resist while Mari led him away. Her strength circumvented his ability to fight, and it wasn’t until they stepped outside that Danny felt whatever hold had been placed on him released.

“Are you going to kill me?” he blurted the moment he had the ability.

Liam scowled, but didn’t make eye contact with Danny. “I haven’t determined what I’m doing with you yet,” he said, unlocking the driver’s side door and reaching across the seat once inside the car to unlock the other doors. Mari opened the rear, passenger door and practically shoved Danny into the back with her.

Once they had all been shut in, Liam started the car. “You surrendered your fate the moment you came looking for me,” he said, pulling onto the driveway and swinging the car around to exit.

“You were the one who dragged me into this,” Danny snapped back. “I haven’t even asked you what you did to me while I was under your influence. Did I even consent before you fucked me?”

Liam slammed on the brake and shifted around in his seat to glower at Danny. Danny squared his shoulders, meeting the glare measure for measure, but instead of responding, Liam grumbled and turned in his seat again, continuing their exodus. Danny sat against the back of the bench seat, trying to hold together his composure. Mari shot him periodic glances, but Danny ignored her and continued looking forward. Eventually, his gaze strayed to the windows again and, eventually, a form of dread settled over his soul, threatening to bring tears to his eyes. It didn’t take long for them to arrive at a different residence, in a different part of Philadelphia, but already, Danny knew where he’d been taken.

To the last place on Earth he’d ever see.