I found myself involuntarily alone.

Once again, that is. It was a situation I was most commonly slotted into and thereby something I become used to. A 'situation' I supposed was a paraphrase for almost the entirety of my life. And when something does become a part of one's life it is easy to become accustomed to it, no matter how unpleasant that part may be. In this case, it was very unpleasant.

Loneliness, I believe, is one of the worst states for a human to be in. One begins to notice things that shouldn't be noticed. The air, how it moves and shapes around things and swirls among obstacles, sounds, whether the wind or waves it bounces around through everything but oneself, and other things like that. Loneliness is, above all, unnerving and I am not attempting to conceal that, but I am simply state that my life has been rather predominately made up of this solitude.

However my 'alone' state doesn't indicate anything but an isolated preference. It is not something that indicates my unsocial behaviour, it does not indicate my unattractiveness, interior or otherwise, or my inability to make 'friends'. I can most definitely assure I am a very confident, attractive and social person. No, my solitude is nothing but my own or others faults and not that of luck's or beauty's or personality's. Whether I purposely place myself into confinement or am confined it is due to the advantage of I or another.

Which in this case it wasn't my advantage. In this case I was locked up and kept quiet. I was being isolated for the safety of others.

Safety was such an understatement. Did they actually think I didn't posses the ability to overpower them at any given time?

Maybe. I wondered what the guards thought as one secured my hands together. The boy who had done it looked about seventeen, probably just out of school. The poor kid, probably bored; with an F in Maths and a D in everything else, except gym maybe. That's probably why they'd hired him: he stood six four and had the bulk of a bear with hair the colour of rusting iron. Good face, nice eyes, they reminded me of the sky when it was overcast.

Those eyes only flickered once and once only. For the minute he had been wrapping the flexible metal around my wrists and then overlapping them on my fingers. It was a slight shock to see metal-tec being publically used. Had it really been this long? After he'd finished it was like he didn't know what to do. I suppose most people would drop their hands, just let them go and fall down. Not me. I wanted to see how he'd react if I just kept them there, just for a moment, suspended in the air. After a short hesitation he forced them down, pushed them towards my legs as if he was attempting to force natural motion. I felt like laughing at his confusion but the boy was just a kid and it'd probably hurt his feelings. It was at that moment when he looked up and I say those eyes. They were like mine.

"Doutzen..."

Hemer forced the boy away before he could glare at me further. The boy stumbled back to the other guards and left me to stare into the detective's dark eyes. He needed a shave I noticed.

"...are you sure you want to do this?"

I was about to tell him he needed a shave and ignore the question. I was about to, almost. But then I felt sorry for Hemer. I thought the poor man is so fucked up that he feels sorry for a serial killer. So I thought it'd be best to answer.

"No, of course I'm not sure," I told him, as blankly as possible. I wanted to pretend we were two normal people at a train station. It was a wet, winter morning and we were talking about the weather. I liked talking casually; it made me feel normal. "Wouldn't you do the same thing in my position?"

He smiled without teeth. It was a melancholy smile with a side longer on the left than the right, a smile someone would smile before a parent would explain to their child why they were leaving. It was something I'd had experience with.

"Would you at least consider it?" I asked.

The man nodded, "Anyone would consider it, but people would leave it at that. A consideration. An 'if' not a 'maybe'. Most people wouldn't voluntarily kill themselves, you know."

I reframed from rolling my eyes, it would have probably hurt his feelings, all boys are so sensitive. Instead I laughed a little, "It's not suicide, Hemer; it's a test."

"That's why tests exist: because-something-might-go-wrong."

"Might. Something might go wrong."

Hemer looked away. He took no notice of logic, brushed it off as if he was purposely attempting to be indifferent. I knew it was only because he presumed the worst. He presumed I was on death row. I presumed I would be free.

"You could always become ill." He suggested, "You've always been good at fainting. They'd let you go back if something was wrong."

I couldn't help smiling. How devout he was to me, how extraordinarily sweet. It was the kind of sweetness that should come with the friend that had lived next door for years. The one friend that you always saw from a distance but heard so much about, that one person that you'd always want to talk to closely but it never seemed possible. That bitter-sweetness perfectly mirrored our friendship.

My smile was my answer and he knew that. It said What is there to go back to?

I spurred and headed towards the door of the car and did not look upon him a moment more then I had to. I couldn't see Joseph Hemer longer than a second that was necessary. I felt almost every inch of my completely psychotic mind scream for me to turn and look at him, I truly wanted nothing more than stare into those dark eyes again. It was so like Hemer to have grabbed my arm and command me to stay...but he didn't. All that brushed my arm was cold air. I wished he had stopped me. He should've made me turn around.

My metallic boots chimed as they hit the floor of the car. Just as that sound escaped from under me another erupted: the slamming of the door. The gateway between the cold inside of the car and the colder outside world was sealed. And he was gone.

Hemer had given up on me. Every other time he would have torn me away from whatever road was before me. If that path was not intended to be journeyed with him he would have made me turn the other way. But not this time. In this moment he did nothing.

And he had done nothing because I denied him the thing he wanted most. He had always wanted to be in control of me, it was in the way he spoke to me and the way he looked, I knew that. But I had never let him. I'd always made what I wanted my decision and no one else, not even if they loved me. Hemer had hated this with every part of him and I knew that. He wanted me to be his but not him be mine. Now he had let go of that idea and let go of me.

And once again I was alone.

By myself in another set of four windowless walls and, in comparison to another particular four walls, much less inviting. The air in there smelled like cold should; distasteful, unbreathable, stale air that clung in the back of my throat and threw itself out in melancholic puffs that were only visible due to the single, fixed bulb at the ceiling of the truck. The fluorescent light from which reflected in the steel flooring, ceiling and walls, a trick which made the room appear much bigger than it was. I shifted uncomfortably on the coldest steel bench ever made: I hated tricks.

The metal room quaked as the truck begun its engine. Four shimmering walls started to quiver. This shaking made them appear like glass, like a slight bump on the road would force them to spew themselves onto the floor, smashing into a thousand pieces. I lifted my legs from the floor and wrapped my arms around them.

I could not hear the wheels begin to grind against the beaten road or the gears and wires collide against each other but I knew the truck had started to move. The entire room lurched backward for a moment as if the world was attempting to keep me here. A moment that made me realise I was departing from Hemer, possibly forever. Then further steps of physics kicked in and the world released its grip on me as we begun to roll on our journey out from the country. I'm sure if there were windows I would have watched the moors I had known for seven years pass me by.

She was due to arrive within the hour but they hadn't told us when. I looked down at the stranger's Rolex beside me and discovered that that hour was almost gone. Out of all the patients I was sure that somehow she could purposefully make them late just to piss me off. I suppose out of all the patients she was the only one who wanted to do this, though.

I'd admit it to anyone that we were lucky to have someone like Doutzen. Although I might not show it that often her existence benefited us in a few separate ways. Firstly her case got us the publicity we needed to get authority again which made people feel safer. Now at least that meant bored housewives weren't complaining daily that the bum on their corner was a drug dealer that would make little Jimmy go off the rails. And secondly, there was this, of course.

But this wasn't going to happen if we were late. Cornish could get volunteers from the public as long as he paid them well which made our volunteers not that important. Well, volunteer. The only upside for them using Doutzen was apparently 'it looked good' according to the team of PRs that The Abbey had. If they could bring a serial killer out of the dark then they could help anyone, right? Sounded clever enough for me, I mean, of course it would sound good to anyone who was earning a bonus like I was for organising this. But there wasn't going to be a bonus if there was no volunteer.

"Stop fidgeting," Baulder spluttered in a hoarse whisper to one of the accompanying guards. Probably Rolex guy.

True right he was; we couldnt' look nervous in front of Cornish.

"Manon!"

I looked up at the broad faced man, "What?"

"I said calm down. I was talking to you." Puffy eyes and a fat chin made the man looked less intimidating than he wished to be. He didn't think much of me either. We both shook our heads and turned back to face the gates from the skyscraper's entrance to the main road. I saw Rolex guy smirk.

"How could you be calm in a position like mine?" I asked rhetorically, "The bitch is going to make us late and I have to watch Abbey throw us out. This is something I spent months on."

From the corner of my vision I saw his eyes almost bulge out from his sockets, "We spent months on and don't you forget it!" Angered spit flung from his grotesquely chubby lower lip as he huffed in indifference, all pink and sweaty. I swore Baulder's talent was only a perfect impersonation of a pig.

"Of course, I forgot all the faxes you sent..." a bluntness carved through my voice that I could only bring myself to use against Baulder. Boldness was rarely something I valued over control however it was the only weapon against stupidity.

"Don't you dare count me out of this," I felt him staring at me with all the integrity he could muster. A sweaty finger accusing struck itself in my direction, a disfigured lump that reminded me of a sausage. The only reason I shut my mouth was so I didn't risk throwing up. "And with nothing to add I'll assume you're going to now do as I tell you. So calm down, okay? Obviously they'll need more volunteers to test this thing on, so if this one goes well they'll have an infinite resource of patients from us. You know-"

"Oh, God! Here they are." Without being aware of it I exhaled all the air I had been nervously breathing in the previous hour and put I hand over my forehead. It was as if I could feel my mind become calmer and once again in my control.

The guards positioned at the sides of the road opened the three levelled structure that The Abbey referred to as a gate. This ten foot or so metallic machine that seemed to express nothing but the dominancy the company held. A seal between the outside world and the beautifully shinned windows that were the skyscraper's amour against the entirety of the city, a shield that seemed not to deflect the common but withhold the prestige. That gate was a last resort. The skyscraper was to keep the bad out, the gate to keep the worst. At least we weren't the worst, and hopefully not bad.

It didn't seem we were even close to bad when they arrived; it seemed more like we were the president's party. Doutzen had been late for a reason, I saw, because she'd hustled up an entire king's-guard. Firstly, two officers on motorbikes rolled up slyly, covered in blue and white and Top Gun sunglasses, who crawled forward down the hill before a copper car, sirens and all flashing like they didn't know how to turn it off. Then came another pair of motorcyclists, who seemed to be in sync with the middle 80's Hollywood wardrobe, serious and but seeming to hold as much belief in honour and duty as a president's guard. Finally, the only really necessary vehicle in the whole parade of 'let's throw money out the Police Department's door', strolling along as if the road was paved with glass, forward came the armguard that contained Doutzen Mycah.

I stared at that truck for a moment. Even titanium walls didn't make me feel safe. I had to hold back every thought on how'd she'd escape, she could do it if she really wanted and I prayed today wasn't a day she'd want to. The girl terrified me and even the thought of her escaped terrified me more. She could do it.

Just not today, please...was all I could think to reassure myself. You can understand if that was my only reassurance how worried I was. Then when I thought that all I could think was God, please, not now.

"What a show," Baulder exclaimed, but it sounded more in disparagement than in awe, "How dramatic."

"And here comes the drama queen..." I muttered.

Directly behind Doutzen's cage drove a Rolls-Royce limozine, a black stain against its concrete surroundings. Tinted windows reflected the outside world, hiding the suits and ties inside the car, one of which we knew too well. The suit in the centre was the darkest shadow, almost unseeable to the untrained eye. Mani Holtfast.

"Struth, he's security, not the head of homecoming," Baulder murmured, "Heard it was a same pish-posh for the kids' funeral. The way he did the church anyone would have thought it was a wedding." A swollen smile that only an oversized monstrosity could have created creased upon Baulder's lips.

"Shut up, that's not funny," I hissed, intending to look Baulder straight in the eye and tell him what a nasty piece of shit I thought her was. Instead I looked back up at the cars and left it at that, hit was too disturbing to watch that grin.

"Well, then," he huffed, "I suppose your honour has now passed the point of finding anything funny?"

Maybe I should have said something smart, like I do. But I realised how stupid this conversation was and changed my mind. God, if there was one person who could really drive me up the wall it was Baulder. Instead I stood silently and waited, thinking of all the horrible ways I could do his ugly face in.

The motorcycles drove round to the right, where the road continued to loop back to the main street, leaving Doutzen's tank to stop directly in front of us and Holtfast's limo behind it. A gap between the cars only showed how scared he was of her, even with a bulletproof cage between them. There was an unmistakable trait about the Holtfast family; they were all very fair from stupid.

The security was let out first. On either side of the limousine four men in dark suits strode from each door, looking as if they were protecting a king. After them he came from the left door, black suit and flashing, satin red tie, topped with D&G sunglasses that should've just said "these cost more than your house"; we were suddenly in the presence of Mani Holtfast. Intimidating as any wog with more money than their bank, he wore an Italian made smile which leaked nothing but confidence and scrambled, dark hair that seemed to just sit perfectly. It was a wonder he wasn't a model, even at forty-five.

"Mr Holtfast, an honour," Baulder blustered like he was greeting an emperor, taking Mani's hand in his fat fingers and shaking them like no tomorrow. I almost felt like saying, "And I have never seen this man before".

"Ah-you must be Thompson Baulder?" the king nodded, still with a brilliant smile, "The Force is nothing but a great testimony to the country's achievements and without your team we would all be gone. Even we cannot best your success." He laughed, charmingly, of course. I then realised why the Holtfasts were so successful: because even a person as worthless and ugly as Baulder they could find good things in. I had nothing but awe for Mani.

"Oh, you are too kind! We do our jobs," Baulder began and I'm sure wished to continue on his 'modesty' train but then Mani became suddenly disinterested. He caught sight of me.

Sliding his hand from Baulder's slimy grip, he paced towards me, "This must be-"

"Manon Sidonie," I nodded.

"Second in charge, I'd presume?" He scrunched his eyes for a moment.

"We both are, sir," I corrected and intended to add, But some of us are less deserving of the title. while looking a Baulder.

"Fantastic, I've only heard good things so far," he smiled. Yet however as much confidence Mani Holtfast exhibited, I couldn't help but notice the short side-glances towards the truck. It was then I noted he had said '...so far...'

Baulder gestured a fat hand towards the truck, "No time like the present, Mr. Holtfast," and laughed like he and the king had some personal joke. The glint of fear in his eyes vanished as he turned towards Baulder and nodded in agreement, "Naturally, Mr. Baulder."