Alright, lovelies... I've added this extra chapter for you. I think it's actually a pretty useful chapter to the plot. It shows Jim and Paul's roles in this whole ordeal a little more and better explains Paul's character. Hopefully you won't feel like it's just unnecessary filler. I wouldn't have added it if I didn't think it fit into the story and if I didn't think it was an important addition.

So I hope you like it, and I hope you are glad the story is a bit longer now. :)

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Chapter10

As Daryl lay in the ever darkening room, he listened to all the sounds around him. During all of his years of hunting and tracking, he'd taught himself to be very good at listening to his surroundings and picking up on small details other people might not notice. Oftentimes, his hunt would run over into nighttime, so he'd have to rely on sounds more than sights. Therefore, he had a good ear for picking up on little sounds and discerning their origins.

Within the room, he could hear the breathing of both himself and his younger companion. Glenn's breaths were steady and even now, and for that Daryl was grateful. His distraction of story-telling seemed to have worked. They were both still in a world of trouble, but at least he didn't have to deal with Glenn freaking out about it. Not right now anyway. Fortunately, the boy seemed to have finally made it to a point where he understood that hyperventilating wasn't going to solve anything. Of course, Daryl knew that might all go out the window once any of their captors returned.

Outside, Daryl could hear the steady, never-ending hum of crickets chirping. While the world was busy going to hell for the humans, it seemed to be staying pretty much the same for everything else. Crickets went about their business just as they always did. Other animals did too. Sure, now deer and cows would be killed by being bitten into and eaten alive by walkers, but they were already low on the food chain anyway. He supposed for some other animals life had probably gotten more dangerous. Dogs, cats, horses, and other animals humans hardly ever ate before were fair game now. But it seemed humans were the ones who truly got the raw end of this deal. Now not only were they at the bottom of the food chain, but their their main predator was each other. Walking dead would kill the living, and if the dead didn't do it, the living would turn on each other. The world was doomed as far as humans were concerned.

Still keeping quiet, Daryl listened some more. He could hear the light sounds of footsteps from somewhere down the hall. The three strangers were still up and moving, so he and Glenn could not rest easy for the night. Maybe their captors were just walking around, organizing supplies or whatever it was they had to do to keep their hospital-home up and running. Or maybe they were busy planning some fucked up operation on their two "patients." Daryl was going to assume the worst until proven wrong. For now, he was on guard. There wasn't much he could do while being tied up like this, but he could at least know what to expect and try his hardest to work something out.

The older man grimaced as he heard the footsteps coming nearer. He glanced over at Glenn, who was still just staring up at the ceiling. He must not have noticed the foot steps. Either that, or he'd accepted that it didn't much matter what he heard.

Of course Daryl wasn't surprised when the door opened. Glenn didn't seem phased by it either. Both of them turned to see who it was that was coming into the room this time. Strangely enough, it was only Jim and Paul. For some reason, Alex didn't join them. Maybe that meant there wasn't going to be much going on. Alex was the one who seemed to be in charge; maybe he'd sent his errand boys to check in on their patients. Or maybe Jim and Paul were in here without the permission of their leader. Maybe they were going to do something they weren't supposed to be doing...

"You two still doing alright?" Jim asked as he walked in. He looked at Daryl first, and then glared down angrily at Glenn. He must not have forgiven the boy for punching him earlier.

Neither of the two answered. Of course they weren't doing alright... They were strapped to beds in a mental hospital during the fucking zombie apocalypse. That was far from them doing 'alright.'

"We're just here to take some information down," Paul explained without emotion. He seemed so distant from this whole situation. He didn't seem to be excited by it like Alex and Jim. But he didn't seem to be against it either. There was no reluctance in his voice. The man just didn't seem to care what his friends did at all. He seemingly had no opinion whatsoever on any of this.

"Alex wants to know more about you guys before he does anything else," Jim elaborated, "and don't you lie about anything. If you do, it'll just fuck things up and make everything worse for you. For instance, if you say you weigh more than you really do, we'll overdose you. And if you say you weigh less, we won't dose you enough and you might be awake during stuff you probably won't want to know about..."

Daryl glanced over at Glenn. The boy looked very tense. His hand was balled into a fist and his breathing was a bit quicker than before.

"So just answer our questions truthfully, and you'll be fine," Paul added. In one hand he held a pen and in the other a clipboard. He put the pen against the paper and looked to Daryl first, "weight?"

Daryl shrugged, "I don't know..." he didn't often weigh himself, and he couldn't even remember the last time he'd gone to the doctor, "don't you guys got a scale in here somewhere?"

"Just take your best guess," Jim instructed, "in case you haven't noticed, we aren't quite doing things by the book here. A little estimation won't hurt."

Sighing, Daryl stared at the man. He didn't know if it would be better to guess on the high or low end. Would he rather be over-dosed or under-dosed? He certainly didn't want to feel anything if he was being cut into, but he didn't want to be too out of it either. Maybe it would be worth a little extra pain just to know what was going on... Or maybe, since he'd be unable to do anything about it regardless, it would be better to just have the proper dosage of anesthetic. It all depended on what medications these men planned on using, and why. He supposed he should just try to make his guess as accurate as possible, "One-seventy?" he finally decided.

"Okay," Paul wrote something down and then looked over to Glenn, "you?"

Glenn hesitated as well. His eyes looked worried still as he frowned over at Paul. Maybe he didn't know his weight either. Or maybe he was trying to figure out what the best lie would be, "A hundred and forty," Glenn sounded uncertain.

"Alright," Paul wrote that down as well, "blood type?" he looked at Daryl.

Daryl shrugged, "don't know. And I can't guess on that one."

"Fine," Paul looked at Glenn.

Glenn shrugged, "I don't know..."

"Jim's going to take your blood pressure and heart rate... I think that'll be about it. We can't really do much without electricity," Paul explained, "you both look healthy enough anyway... I doubt much will go wrong unless Alex does something risky."

Daryl watched as Jim went over to Glenn first. The boy held completely still and said absolutely nothing. He still seemed tense and nervous. He probably didn't want to risk making Jim angry again, but probably didn't find this situation nearly as scary as the last time Jim had been hovering over him. Daryl wondered if Jim even knew what he was doing. The older man put the cuff around Glenn's arm as Paul continued talking.

"When we first got here, there was still electricity," Paul said, "I guess there was some sort of back up generator or something... I don't know how it all works. Maybe it just took a little bit for the electricity to go out after the world kind of ended. It didn't last long though. But we had so much freedom with our first patients. Not that it mattered much to me. I don't know how to test blood or anything anyway. Alex was pretty excited about it, and we were able to have heart monitors running so we could keep better track of who was doing okay and who wasn't. And I'm betting you know how important it is to know if someone's alive or dead in this world... We had one patient die, and we didn't know it until the next day... The guy nearly ripped his own hands off trying to get up and eat the other patients."

Daryl looked up at Paul. Maybe if they weren't injecting their patients with zombie blood they wouldn't have to worry about them dying and coming back... He didn't want to make Paul angry just yet though. For now, he wanted to try to reason with the man, "do you even like doin' all this?" he asked, "all these medical experiments?"

Paul shrugged, "It's alright."

"You don't feel at all guilty for torturing people?" Daryl whispered, hoping he could allow Paul to hear him without letting Jim in on this conversation. He didn't want Jim's input on this, and he supposed his best chance at convincing Paul to let them go would be if the other two men stayed out of their conversation.

Paul shook his head, "I'm not torturing anyone. Have I done anything to torture you or your friend since you've been here?" the man raised his eyebrows and looked like Daryl had just insulted him, "I think I've been perfectly civil."

"You're standing back and letting your friends experiment on people... living, breathing, unwilling people. Those two sick fucks carved numbers into our skin... And they did it to all their other 'patients' too," Daryl hissed, "maybe you ain't the one actually doing any of it, but by sitting back and watching them, and doing nothing to stop them, you're just as fucked up as they are. Do you want to allow shit like this to go on right under your nose?"

For the first time, Daryl noticed a flash of anger in Paul's eyes. It seemed the man wasn't indifferent about everything, "You'd be wise to refrain from calling my brothers 'sick fucks,'" he advised.

Daryl had to fight the urge to allow this to turn into a yelling match. As much as he wanted to scream at this guy, he knew it would do him no good. So instead, he took a page from Glenn's book, sighed, and did his best to remain calm, "listen, man," he started, "I understand that you respect your brothers, but you don't gotta follow them and do things you don't agree with. You gotta know this is messed up..."

Paul shook his head, "I'm not arguing with you about this," he explained, "I honestly don't care what they do to you guys. Maybe I don't like experimenting on people as much as they do, but I'm certainly not going to double-cross them in favour of a couple strangers. I don't know you guys. I don't care about you at all. They can cut out your tongue and eyes while your friend watches for all I care. This world isn't ever going to be what it used to be. There's no reason to pretend to be a good person anymore."

"There never was a reason to pretend to be nice," Daryl scoffed, feeling any hope he had of convincing Paul to help them quickly fading. Maybe he should have let Glenn do the talking... The boy probably wouldn't have gotten angry and insulted this guy and his brothers as fast as Daryl had.

"Yeah there was," Paul disagreed, "if we'd done this before, I'd have gone to jail with the rest of them, but not if I tried to stop them. As it is now, I have no obligation to keep them from doing whatever their hearts desire. I don't care, and I don't have to care. No pressure."

"You realize Alex is kind of like your boss, right? You're in the middle of a zombie-fucking-apocalypse, and you still get up every morning and go to work. This is a job. Having me and Glenn here has created a job for you. One which you don't get paid to do... You're working for your brother, for free, for no reason. Yer workin' right now," Daryl tried one last tactic.

Paul shook his head, "have we really got anything better to do?" he raised his eyebrow and almost smiled.

It seemed there was nothing he could say to convince this guy, so Daryl looked back toward Glenn. Jim was taking the cuff off his arm and looked up toward Paul, "I think his blood pressure's normal. Does it really even matter? I mean, what if it wasn't normal? Would Alex just let him go? I don't think so."

Paul wrote something else on his clip board, "Now do his," he gestured toward Daryl.

Jim walked around Glenn's bed so that he stood over Daryl. He slipped the cuff under Daryl's restrained arm, fastened it around his bicep, and then started pumping air into it, "I think I was doing it too slow last time," Jim commented, "it took forever to fill up."

Daryl rolled his eyes, "what good is it to send you two idiots in here? Alex may as well have sent in a couple of monkeys," He knew it wasn't wise to taunt these guys, but the way he saw it, if he could make them more angry at him than at Glenn, he could at least spare Glenn from receiving any of their anger in the form of physical pain. He also doubted these two would do too much without Alex here.

Jim glared at him and pumped the air into the cuff faster, probably in an attempt to hurt Daryl's arm, "you guys are the dumbest patients we've ever had," Jim stared down at him, "and that's saying something, considering the only other patients we had were mental hospital patients. You know, insane people... At least they didn't talk back to us so much... Don't either of you realize we have you at our complete mercy? I could kill you right now if I wanted to. I could do whatever I want, and here you are calling me stupid..."

Daryl could feel the pressure around his arm becoming too tight, but Jim continued pumping air into the cuff. Jim was obviously still angry. As much as he overfilled the cuff, Daryl kept a straight face and refused to acknowledge the growing pain in his arm.

"You're going to blow that thing up," Paul reminded him, "and when you do, Alex is going to be pissed. You already let a syringe get broken."

Jim ripped the cuff off Daryl's arm and shoved it toward Jim, "that wasn't my fault," he growled, "his blood pressure's fine."

Daryl almost wanted to laugh. Why did Jim even bother trying to take their vitals when he had no idea how to? Why had Alex sent him to do a job he was clueless about? It would have been funnier if Jim wasn't in a position to take out his anger and frustration on Daryl and Glenn. It wouldn't be so bad if Daryl laughed and Jim hit him for it, but Daryl didn't want his amusement to end up getting Glenn hurt, so he kept his smile tucked away and refrained from laughing.

Paul grinned and marked another note down on his paper. He clearly didn't care much about the accuracy of whatever forms he was filling out, and seemed to find amusement in this just like Daryl had, "alright. Heart rate," he instructed, "I can do it if you want."

"No," Jim frowned, "I'll do it."

Paul handed him a stethoscope he'd been holding under his clip board, "Just count how many beats there are in one minute. Does your watch still work? Or do you want me to keep time?"

"I got it," Jim sounded irritated. He put the ear tips into his ears and the chest piece over Daryl's heart and began listening.

As he waited for Jim to be finished, Daryl glanced over at Glenn, who actually looked quite worried. Glenn must not have seen any humour in this. The younger man maintained eye contact with Daryl, who tried to give him a reassuring look. He wasn't sure how to pull off such a look though, and judging by Glenn's furrowed brows, his attempts weren't working.

Glenn's eyes moved up to Paul. He hesitated for a moment, but Daryl could tell he was trying to build up the courage to say something. Finally, he did, "We know where there are some supplies you can have if you let us go," Glenn tried to bargain, "food, water, lots of guns and bullets... You name it and we probably have it," he lied, "we have a camp set up nearby and we've collected some really useful things-"

"Shut the hell up," Jim growled, glaring over at the boy, "you're distracting me. Making me lose count."

Glenn still stared up at Paul, saying nothing, but urging with his eyes for the man to accept his deal. The younger man's eyes were wide and his lips formed a slight frown. Paul just shook his head very slightly, but kept his eyes on the boy, just staring, not saying a single word. He didn't look amused or sinister. He just stared down at the boy as if he were watching a boring television program.

"Sixty five," Jim said after a while. He then walked over to Glenn, placing the stethoscope over the boy's heart and repeating the same process as before, "man... yours is fast," he commented with a slight chuckle and an even slighter smile. Then he grew silent as he listened to the boy's heart, which was likely pounding pretty hard. Judging by Jim's comment and Glenn's worried expression, Daryl imagined the boy was probably pretty freaked out again.

Glenn focused his gaze back on Daryl, and he still looked concerned. Daryl could see he was breathing faster again, but not as rapidly as he had been before. He was clearly uncomfortable having Jim, who was obviously angry, standing right over him again. He was probably also quite disappointed that Paul, the man who had seemed to maybe be their ticket out of here, was not even close to willing to help them out.

"Eighty," Jim laughed as he looked over to Paul.

"That's probably still normal," Paul shrugged, "He's just stressed," Paul glanced at Daryl and then back at Glenn, "that's all we need for now. I guess you guys can just relax for a while," he suggested.

"Yeah," Daryl scoffed, "we'll just relax for a bit."

Paul just offered him a half smile before turning and leaving with Jim following close behind.

"You'd better be careful, Daryl," Glenn suggested as soon as the two men were out of the room and the door was shut behind them, "I really thought Jim was going to punch you... or squeeze your arm until the blood pressure thing burst or something... And for a second I thought Paul might hit you too. Why are you trying to make them angry?"

Daryl shrugged, "just pushing their buttons... Testing their limits."

"Well, I think you just about reached both of their limits," Glenn frowned, "and I don't think you want to see what happens when you push them too far. They've had fifteen other people in here, just like us, and I doubt all their deaths were accidents..."

"Don't worry about me, Glenn," Daryl looked seriously at the younger man. He didn't want the boy to know that part of the reason Daryl kept testing their captors was on Glenn's account, so Daryl could focus any anger they had on him instead of on his companion. That would just make the kid feel guilty if one of the men really did take out his anger on Daryl, "I know what I'm doing," the older man assured him, "and I'll get us out of this. Apparently it's a complicated process, but I'm gonna figure it out. I made it this far, didn't I?"

Glenn was still frowning. He didn't look very hopeful. In fact, he looked like he was just humouring Daryl at this point. To Glenn, Daryl's promise to get them out of here was probably equivalent to a child's promise to become a dinosaur, "any plans yet?" Glenn wondered.

Daryl shrugged, "well, my first plan didn't work. I didn't realize Paul was a fuckin' sociopath. I thought he'd be the most likely to let us go, but now that I've talked to him, I think he's probably the least likely. Maybe he's not interested in experimentation and all that shit, but his complete indifference is even scarier than Jim and Alex's sick fascination with hurting people. Paul would probably just leave us here to starve to death if it were up to him, just because he couldn't be bothered to even come into the room if Alex didn't ask him to."

"What are we going to do then?" Glenn frowned, "Daryl... We're tied to beds. How could we possibly get out of this?"

"We'll think of somethin," Daryl offered, "I been getting myself in and out of trouble my whole life."

Glenn pouted, "well, I hope you can think of another plan, because I sure don't have one..."

xxxxxx

So not much happened in this chapter, but now you've got a better idea of what Paul's deal is... Hopefully you're glad I added this chapter even though it wasn't really very exciting. I had made hints earlier in the story that Paul might be their way out of this and then I never bothered having them try to reason with him... I guess I just didn't give them the opportunity until I added this chapter in. So I really hope you liked this bit and don't see it as worthless filler. I think it fits in with the rest of the story perfectly well, and I like that my three villains are more easily distinguished from each other now. I also decided they are brothers... I've got a bit of a siblings theme going on in here.

And you may notice Daryl seems to still think the only way to become a zombie is to be bitten by one, or injected with their blood. I added his little thought about that in on purpose after Paul implied that the other patients died and came back as zombies. Paul knows everyone is infected, but Daryl and Glenn don't. I'm going to let you assume also that the other patients stayed in different rooms or something... Or else their blood would be all over these beds - as they'd have needed to have their skulls beaten in or their brains shot after they died, and cleaning up sheets after that wouldn't be easy...

By the way, I've also read the rest of my chapters through and decided to split chapter 13 into two, since it was really long, too much stuff happened in it, and I felt like there could be more elaboration and detail added to some parts... So there will be 14 chapters total now. That is the last of the edits. 14 chapters is the final answer. I hope you read til the end, and I hope you love it. :)

Four more chapters to go. (and I think they are a pretty good four chapters...) ^_^