Young Writers Society

"So what... are you just gonna stay there and watch us?" Carter asked. "Are you here to engage us in conversation?" He continued, speaking in a tone with the underlying meaning being: 'okay so if you're not useful to us, can you leave?'

"I'm here to make sure you don't do anything stupid and to keep you from getting anywhere if you do," Sieben replies. "I don't give a damn if I do it in silence or not."

A guard. Oh joy. Carter rolled his eyes and sighed, flopping back down in his cell.

"You're a fool to do this, Gunther. You know she's not going to help you," Kratzer tried again from his corner.

"I said, shut the f*** up, Thirteen! If I wanted your opinion I'd g**d**** well ask for it!" Sieben growled. "Either still your tongue or lose it!"

"You really think this is beneficial to you? After what she did?!"

"At least she didn't abandon me and turn me into a d***** monster!"

"I saved your life!"

"You should've let it end! It's what your best at, isn't it?" Sieben shot back, the discussion getting more heated by the moment.

That was perfect, then. This Boomerang woman was an idiot. It was difficult to stage an escape when there was only himself to work on, but if there was a guard? He could manipulate them. All it took was just the right amount of riling up, and Gunther would be taking him out of his cell to feed on him. He could stand a few minutes of that. Just when the vampire - as he apparently was - was getting into it, he'd knock the guy out and throw him into his own cell.

Then he'd be out of here, off to find Bickerstaff to interrogate him and find another way back to his home.

And, lucky for him, Kratzer was already doing a wonderful job on the angering Gunther part.

"I don't know," Skull said, studying the little bit of dirt that was underneath his fingernails. "I'd say you didn't need her to turn you into a monster, Gunther. You're already a monster as it is. Threatening to feed on us if we escape? Tormenting poor Kratzer over there? If anything, you're the one who should be behind bars. I'd even go as far as saying that you get a sadistic sense of enjoyment out of seeing us suffer."

He chuckled. "Humanity? You never had it. You're as much of a monster as you can be right now, Gunther, and you're just kidding yourself if you say that you're better than us."

Sieben turns on Skull, metallic eyes furious. He begins to reply before cutting himself off and studying the prisoner. Then, wordlessly, and without explanation, he walks back to his corner, leans against the wall, and goes silent. The tension is still quite obvious but he refuses to engage with Skull.

Kratzer spits a couple more foul words in German before stalking back to his own corner and standing there in an almost comically similar pose to Sieben. Even their gaits and expressions are uncannily similar.

Skull noted the similarities between the two, though it wasn't all that surprising. They had established their shared history, and were bound to have picked up a few things from the other over the course of their past encounters. What he was more focused on, however, was the fact that his taunts and jabs were failing. Gunther was apparently too experienced to fall for something like what he said, which seriously impacted his plans for escape.

Okay, so it wasn't going to work quickly.

But if he pushed him just far enough...

"So, Kratzer!" Skull loudly said. "You and Gunther over there seem to be quite close. You must have some pretty interesting stories about him, right? I'm terribly bored, and I'm sure Gunther's done his far share of embarrassing and evil things in the past."

Carter understood what Skull was trying to do. He was trying to provoke Sieben to anger, on the assumption that Sieben - in his anger - would try to feed on him. And while he did consider it a good idea, considering Skull couldn't die, he had a few reservations regarding his own safety were he to partake in it. Namely, that he could possibly die in the process, or become a vampire, if that was his intended fate.

He had to admit, even though he would never say so out loud, that he did feel slightly inferior in physical might and power to Skull. As for Skull's personality, that, he wasn't impressed by.

But he did have some hope in his plan.

He scoffed at Skull's comment. "Don't be such a slow-brained dimwit. They're obviously related. What is it? Father and son? Uncle and nephew? What did Kratzer do to offend you so, Gunther? Or maybe, like Skull, I should be addressing Kratzer. Since clearly, he is the more level headed of you two. Apart from the obvious bloodlust. Though one can hardly blame him. He's been deprived."

Sieben ignored Carter and Skull, gazing coldly at the floor in front of him. Kratzer himself gave Skull a dark, dangerous look and instead answered Carter, since his son obviously wasn't going to.

"He's my son, and I saved his life by turning him after I left his mother so Boomslang didn't find the two of them," Kratzer says rather pointedly, half-directing the words at Sieben.

Skull's demeanor immediately changed at the comment. He studied both Kratzer and Gunther for a good minute before retreating to the very back of his cell - a place he had yet to go into since he had been brought to this particular cell.

"So then what?" Skull asked, studying the floor underneath him. "After you left his mother and turned him into a vampire, what did you do?"

"Well, then we nearly got out from under Boomslang's thumb before he shot me and threw me right back in the war. Skip forward a year I escaped, killed Hitler, and disappeared," he says. "That's it."

Skull looked up and stared at Gunther. There was no mockery to his face like there had been the previous times he had looked in his direction; now there was only a tired sort of curiosity. "So why did you shoot him, then?"

He ignored him.

"Why did you shoot him?" he repeated.

Sieben continued to act as though he hadn't spoken.