"Can't get yourself to push the plunger, can you?"
Steve couldn't keep his strained voice from breaking. Pinned down with the full bodyweight of young Danny on his elbows and resting one knee on the side of his chest, he was running low on both, air and patience.
The past few moments had been spent in anxious stillness; the only sound he could hear being the frantic beating of his heart and the blood rushing through his veins.
He didn't know what made Danny volunteer for the kill. Not yet anyways.
But his training in psychology was enough to caution him that it didn't have much to do with saving his sorry behind. A complex character like Danny, who easily justified homicide for the most noble cause of all, to save his mother, wasn't likely to grow emotionally attached to the very people standing in the way of his goal. Steve figured that his request to kill him had a lot more to do with wanting to earn the respect of his older peers, and perhaps even to silence the voice of reason Mike had tried to instill into his mind.
Stuck in a bizarre situation of being one squeeze of the plunger away from death, Steve was relieved when he felt the fingers against his neck beginning to shake.
Fighting the pain from the needle in his sensitive tissue, he tried to clear his throat, only to find it to be too agonizing.
"Is this your…your first kill…? The guys having you do the dirty work normally? Dump the bodies? Run the organs into town?"
"I dump the bodies. That's right…"
The young man's voice had changed, become remorseful. Steve figured that perhaps, some of the things Mike had said earlier about the end not necessarily justifying the means had struck a chord with him.
"Bobby brought up a backhoe and I am using it to dig a mass grave."
Nearly flinching at the ease with which he'd said those words, Steve tried to look over, wanting to see Danny's expression, but the young man was leaning too far back.
"How many have you buried so far?"
The ridiculousness of their conversation was beginning to wear on his nerves, as was the very realistic fear of what was happening to Mike as they spoke.
"Seventeen. Twelve we were able to harvest from."
We.
The use of that word in reference of premeditated mass murder was both haunting and deeply disconcerting when it came to the young man's psyche.
"Then let me ask you this, Danny…", he said before pausing to take another labored breath, "What about the two floaters? Why didn't you bury them? Why'd you throw them in the water so that they could be found? It's because you wanted them to be found, isn't that right? Because you're getting tired of this. Starting to question the morality of it all. Because Mike was right about you being a good kid stuck in a bad situation."
Above him, Danny shifted his weight, and Steve could feel him manipulate the syringe in his neck. The shooting pain was quickly followed by a warm trickle of blood running down into his collar bone.
"I'm going to be honest with you, cop. I don't like you at all.", Danny said as he pulled out the syringe, and stared at the crimson needle intently, "But I like the Lieutenant. He reminds me of a mentor I had in High School. He gets it. He…he cares. And I've never seen anybody so tore up like he was when the doctor was about to kill you. So he must care deeply for you. I don't want him to go through the pain of losing you."
Much to his relief, the young man moved off his body and kneeled down next to him, using his good hand to empty the syringe onto the carpet, before repeating the procedure with the second one.
"Any moment now, either the doctor or Bobby are going to come and check on things. And by then, it better look like I am in the middle of finishing you off."
Throwing the empty hypodermics onto the ground, Danny flinched when voices could be heard from the surgery room. Reaching into his pant pocket, he resurfaced the keys to the handcuffs and quickly unlocked them, before hiding them once again. Next, he removed the nylon rope around his cramping legs, allowing Steve to stretch for the first time in quite a while.
"Now, if they find out that I spared your life, they're going to kill me. And if I flee alongside with you, they're also going to kill me."
"Danny, we can-"
"Just shut up and listen, will you? I don't have time for your arguments, cop."
The door in the back was opened, but the far-away conversation continued, giving Danny a chance to lean farther down, so that their faces were only inches apart.
"I sure hope you know how to play dead real well, because we're about to have company. And then get moving when the opportunity strikes. Your coats and guns are upstairs on the kitchen counter. Your car has been moved behind the pole barn, keys are inside. Watch out for Lucas, he's still out and about looking for the two kids you guys released. Get out of here as soon as possible and don't hesitate. And you better remember one thing right now…once you're out of his room, I'm going to be your enemy again."