The next night was Friday night. She had her alarm set so she'd be in the correct hallway at the right time. She hadn't seen him since fixing the bullet wound on his chest. Once again he had vanished, left her nothing. Said no words and didn't leave a note. He lived in the shadows. It made things less scary for her. She was able to work on her computer, watch TV, basically live life alone and not be hassled. Wasn't what she expected as a woman in her late thirties but it was better than being in actual prison charged as an actual murderer. It was better than being hounded by the press and everyone who thought she was a monster for letting a man die with dignity. Julian could be a far more rude host. He could be trying to coerce her into sex or other degrading activities. He wasn't doing anything other than expecting her to do a few simple tasks.

She looked down the hall, a short glance, before opening the box on the wall that held the switch. Her watch said that it was 10:59pm. He wanted the switch pulled at 11:00 and that's when she was going to pull it. Down the hall she could hear things being shuffled around. It actually sounded like shackles being rattled, locked into place. The sounds were muffled, denoting they were far away. Most likely they were coming from the last cell, making it impossible for her to see what was going on without venturing too far. She wasn't supposed to anyway and she wasn't very sure that she wanted to. When her watched beeped she pulled the switch down. There was a series of loud alarms and she watched as the cell doors closest to her buzzed loudly and slowly shut. All of them in unison, all the way down the hall. It took about thirty seconds for them to finish closing completely but there was a loud latching noise as well.

She stood there for another moment, not daring to take a step past the box, and heard that same roar she'd heard the day before. The one after she'd helped him removed the bullet. It was really only all she needed to bolt out of there as quickly as possible. He was in that cell, he had to be, but he may also be with someone or something. That wasn't information she needed to know. It would just be better to go about her business as if this were all normal. When she made it to her room she shut the cell door and for the first time since she'd gotten there, she locked it as well. If there were weird creatures in this place, she most certainly didn't want to give them a free pass into her cell by leaving the door open. She curled up under her blankets and put on a funny movie to watch. Hopefully she'd manage to get some sleep.

In the morning, after some how managing to get sleep after all the weird sounds and howling noises she kept hearing, she rolled out of bed. She was supposed to go check on Julian to make sure that he hadn't been harmed. Now she at least partially understood why he wanted that. He could have been attacked by one of those things she heard. Though it did seem kind of ass backwards to lock himself in a cell, at the same time she'd done the same thing. He hadn't warned her, though, so whatever he thought was dangerous to him he didn't seem to think was dangerous to her.

She opened the panel to the switch box and flipped it. The alarms and buzzing started again as all the doors unlatched and opened on whatever electronic track they seemed to be attached to. She timidly walked all the way to the end. Fearful of what she might find in there. He could be dead or severely harmed. She wasn't sure. Maybe he was fine. She hoped he was fine as she feared she might be too shaken to apply any sort of life saving procedures to him if he was seriously wounded. Peering into the cell she could see him. Just a glimpse at first. He was completely naked, but laying in a way that she couldn't see his entire body. Not that it would have been a shock to her. She was a doctor after all.

He sat up groggily, seemingly roused by the loud sounds that the doors were making. He looked dazed, unaware of his surroundings. There were scratches on his face, arms, and chest. Shackles on his wrists and ankles. It seemed that he had locked himself into place, despite the metal bars on the door, and given himself only a bit of room to move with the chains. Not too much. One of them seemed to have been nearly pulled out of the concrete wall. The bleeding was minimal but if he didn't want an infection she was going to have to clean him up. He looked towards her, his interesting colored eyes dull and unseeing. He blinked a few times.

"You listened." He muttered.

"Yeah…" She said slowly, "How do I get you out of these things?" She motioned to the chains around his wrists and ankles. He motioned to a set of keys that weren't even that far away. He could have reached them without really trying. What had been the point of any of this if he'd be able to free himself after anyway? She grabbed the keys and went to unshackling him.

"You stayed." He said, still sounding bewildered.

"That is what you wanted, right? Or should I have run off?" She asked, offering him a nervous smile as she got the chains unlocked. "Come on." He grabbed her arm and she pulled him up as best she could, allowing him to rest against her. He was heavy, huge compared to her, but he was going to need the help.
"No one has ever stayed. They can manage to pull the switch but not spend the night." He said, then yawned loudly. His stomach was growling, he seemed exhausted after whatever had happened the night before.

"You need to get cleaned up and then I'll tend to your wounds." She said. "Can you stand long enough to shower? Or do you want help with that too?"

"I'll manage." He muttered. It was slow going but she got him down to the bathroom that they both shared and stopped in the doorway. Without much of a care to the fact she was there he stumbled over to one of the urinals and started to take a piss. She stared at him for a moment, rather surprised that he was doing this in front of her so freely, before turning away and blushing. It seemed to take him forever to stop peeing and the groan he let out when he was done was very sexual sounding. It aroused her even though she knew it was not the right thing to get aroused by. "I suppose that you are going to want questions answered now?"

"Is that what I want? Yes…" She said, turning to look at him again. He was in the open shower area. Not much had been done to convert this place from looking like a prison. Since he basically lived her alone she could see why he didn't bother. Not like he needed the privacy from anyone else. Didn't even seem like he cared that she was watching him. "I know I can't demand it, though, since you aren't too keen on answering them."

"You were the first to stay, and I am aware if I want you to continue to stay you deserve some sort of explanation. You won't get all of it though." He said, starting to lather up with some of the soap. It was better than nothing, especially considering that she didn't think he ever intended to tell her anything about this.

"Oh, well, thank you for the consideration." She told him.

"It's far more about making sure I say safe, not anything considerate." He told her, "Can you get me some food?"

"Yeah what do you want?" She asked him.

"One of the steaks in the fridge, actually, make that two. Raw." He said. Her expression twisted into a grimace. He had been eating the meat raw. He ate raw meat, chained himself up to sleep every Friday night, and could stop bullets with his chest. What kind of being was he? Because there was no possible way it was human. "You are aware I am not going to answer why, so there is no point in standing there staring at me. Unless you like what you see." He grinned at her and stroked his cock a few times lewdly. Regardless of the fact that she did like what she saw, she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that so she left the bathroom to get him what he wanted. This was getting weirder and weirder as time went on, but at least there seemed to be answers for her right around the corner.

When he came into the kitchen, he was just wearing a towel. It was a fairly large kitchen area too. Not the main prison cafeteria, but there was an area that must have been a guard's quarters or lounge at some point. That had been made into a more full kitchen and dining area and it's where they both appeared to take their meals. He sat down at the table and looked at her. She brought him over a plate with two raw steaks, still making a face of disgust. He seemed to have no problem grabbing them and eating them with his bare hands. She guessed this would have something to do with those wolf howls she had heard all night. The thing was, werewolves didn't exist so as much as her brain wanted to tell her that's what he was, she also knew it was dumb as hell to think that.

"I have a problem you see. Minor kink to work out in the grand scheme of things if you really think about it." He said as he chewed, looking right at her with some odd sort of predatory gaze. She served her own food which was just scrambled eggs and a bowl of cereal, and sat down with him. "I'm immortal."

"That's ridiculous." She snorted and then went to take a bite of food but paused right before the spoon could get to her mouth. "Oh God the bullet."

"Yes, love." He said, licking at his fingers. Both of the steaks had already been devoured, he must have been hungry. All she could do was stare at him, completely dumbfounded to this revelation. It wasn't that she hadn't thought that but him actually confirming it was another thing. "With immortality comes certain problems. You can't just be immortal and not expect it to somewhat be a curse as well."

"Okay…so what's with the raw meat?" She asked.

"It's all I can seem to stomach these days. It's annoying but tolerable. I do miss other food but it's better than not being able to eat at all. Very tasty." He said. Had she not seen the bullet and the minor amount of blood loss and pain it caused she may not have believed him. It was probably why he had waited to say any of this to her. He got up from the table and started to wash his hands at the sink behind her.

"If you are immortal, why do you need a doctor?" She asked him, finally starting to eat her food, now that the shock had somewhat subsided.

"Good question." He said, "There are two reasons for that but you only get to know one right now. That reason is, as immortal as I may be I'm still in a human body. I've noticed that for whatever reason I still get sick and at times get infections. Nothing terrible but better safe than sorry. With you here I can make sure that any injuries I suffer can be properly taken care of. Avoid infections and any general discomfort."

"How do you know you are immortal if you can get sick like that?"

"Once again I will remind you of that bullet in my chest. You saw that yourself, but if you aren't going to believe me well, you'll see far worse if you stick around. I already told you no one has ever spent the initial Friday night. They freak out and leave before morning. It's why the keys to unlock my chains were so close to me. So I could do it myself." He said, "Why did you stay?"

"Not sure, mostly because I needed the money." She said, "And I will continue to need the money until a better option comes along. I'd be stupid to turn down two grand a week to do the minor tasks you request of me."

"Most people have weighed that amount of money against their own life and left. You either have a very large set of balls or are incredibly desperate. Either way it works to my benefit." He chuckled, "Any more questions? I'll give you two if you want, but that's it."

"Two?" She asked, "After what I just saw this morning and heard last night I only get two questions of my own?"

"I could give you zero." He said curtly.

"Fair point I suppose." She muttered into her mug of coffee. After taking a sip she sat back and looked at him. "How long have you been immortal, as in, what is your actual age?"

"My actual age would be 87. Sorry to disappoint you because I assume you'd are thinking I'm hundreds of years old. At some point I probably will be, but I gained immortality only about fifty years ago, so long way to go I suppose." He said and sat back down at the table. She gave him a look. She was unsure of how true that was because he looked to be in his fifties, however, there really wasn't enough evidence to call him a liar or deny it. She wanted to badly forget all of this but all she could keep recalling was that damn bullet wound. How impossible that had been. Unless he was an extremely good con-artist or master of illusion he had to be telling the truth.

"Why become immortal?" She asked him as her second question.

"Out of everything you could have asked, you asked why. Not how, not about the noises you heard last night, not the circumstances that led to me being shot, you ask why." He said sounding like he was in disbelief. Either that or highly irritated by that question. She couldn't tell if it stemmed from a place where he believed her to be stupid, or interesting. Maybe he just really hadn't been expecting her to ask why, or maybe he didn't even have an answer. She didn't know, but it did seem to rub him the wrong way.

"Yeah. Immortality would in no way be something I'd want. People need to be able to die, obviously I'd prefer people got a full lifespan, as I am a doctor, but after a certain point I think it's important that it happens. Circle of life and all. You opted against that. I want to know why. What exactly you thought was so important about life that you needed to keep it forever." She said. He glared at her and then cleared his throat.

"If you must know it had a lot to do with my art. Wanting to keep my status as a shock artist, performance and otherwise and also not die. I wanted to be the best at what I did and have people constantly question how. I got my wish, at least for a while, as well as my fortune. That was until I was banned from public viewing. At least in the states. Doesn't much prevent me from still performing, though. Just have to be more careful about who sees me and where." He explained. She nodded and had a few more bites of food.

"And people have yet to figure out you are immortal?" She asked, "No one is questioning this, after so many years?"

"That's not fair, Lily. I gave you two questions and I answered them." He smirked, "However you already know the answer to that one, think of your own reaction to what you've already seen. Did you instantly jump to the immortality conclusion? And you are an intelligent woman, most of the general public are mindless little peons. In any case I'll see you in a few days or so. I'm sure something will happen between now and next Friday that will force a meeting." He headed out of the room before she could say anything else to him. She now felt as irritated has he had looked when she'd asked him why he'd ever wanted to be immortal. It was clear, by that point, he was only answering he questions to make sure she stuck around, not out of any sort of care or concern for her feelings. As long as he paid her, it really didn't matter. At two thousand dollars a week she'd only need to be there a year or two before making a fortune. After that she'd take her leave from that awful place and awful man. Until then she'd do the job that was requested of her and bide her time in a lonely prison. The outlook was bleak but in the grand scheme of things she was young and would still be young by the time she got out of there. It was just going to be tough for a while. Life wasn't always fair anyway, and she'd gotten off light compared to being in actual jail for life.