Free One More Day by Colleen Vanderlinden

creepy guy’s beck and call.” I stopped talking, let the silence linger. Brianne continued to glare at me.
    “Someone treated me that way, I’d want to see them get their comeuppance,” Portia said quietly. “This would be a good time to save yourself, Ms. Montfort. We have you. We have Daemon. We have Maddoc. Without you out there helping him, it’s just a matter of time until we get Dr. Death and the rest of Mayhem. You help us, and we’ll make sure you don’t spend any more time here than necessary,” Portia said. It was all bullshit of course. There was no pre-determined “necessary” amount of time we kept them in detention. Amy was the representative here on the prisoners’ behalves, and as fair as she wanted to be, she recognized that some of those we took in just shouldn’t be allowed to be free and able to cause pain and chaos. We’d started the process of working with the international super hero community to get our prisoners transferred to a more neutral, better-equipped prison, but it was kind of a long process and we weren’t especially ready to hand Alpha over yet. Not until David and Jenson figured out what he’d been up to. Still, it’s not like Brianne knew that, so we all played along.
    “I’m not telling you anything,” Brianne repeated, and then she closed her eyes and turned her face away from us. Portia and I glanced at one another. We wouldn’t be getting anything out of her, at least not at first. I nodded toward the door, and we all filed out.
    “We’ll try again tomorrow,” Portia said after the door whooshed closed behind us.
    “I’m not expecting much from Daemon,” I said as we walked toward his cell.
    “I hate this guy,” Jenson said as we stood outside his cell door. “He’s creepy and he looks at you like he can see you naked.”
    “Well, he can’t. Not now. He can say shit, but he can’t make us see and feel things the way he usually would,” Portia said. She hit a button, and his cell door opened.
    Like Brianne, Daemon was strapped to the large metal chair in the center of the cylindrical shaped cell. Unlike Brianne, though, he looked at us calmly, a slight smile on his face as he watched us file into his cell. It was impossible to tell his age. He had a sharp, stark looking face, a tall, lanky build, and short dark hair. Narrow dark eyes. He was unnaturally calm for someone in his situation, and my skin crawled just being in the cell with him.
    “Ah, the infamous Daystar,” he said, ignoring everyone else. “Your fears were fun. You were terrified of losing your mother, of disappointing her. Of being helpless.” He smiled. “How is your Mama doing?”
    I lunged toward him, and Amy held me back, her body going to steel, meeting the impact of my strength with strength of her own.
    “He’s strapped down, Daystar,” she said calmly. “Cool it, or I’m going to ask you to leave.”
    I stopped struggling, stopped trying to get to the bastard. I stepped back. “Sorry,” I muttered to Amy, and she patted my shoulder. She turned to Daemon.
    “I’ll tell you this now, mister. I’m here, and I’m here to try to make sure you get a fair shake. But if you piss that one off, there’s not much any of us can do to stop her from getting to you. So I’d watch it.”
    “She’s too weak. She’d never actually do anything to anyone who couldn’t defend himself. Trying to be honorable, when really, there isn’t a noble bone in her body.”
    “You’re right. There’s not,” I said, crossing my arms to keep from trying to throttle him. “You’d be surprised what I’m perfectly okay with doing,” I added, and he kept that same self-satisfied smirk on his face, his eyes on mine. Creepy little shit.
    “We’re here for information. We have you, your transporter, and Maddoc. Mayhem is just about at an end. If you help us clean up some loose ends, we’ll remember that when it comes to your sentencing,” Portia said. “And when it comes to the