If you're looking for an adventure in the morally grey, and a crash course of the human condition, this is the story for you! What is good and evil? Where is that line drawn, and who decides that? Packed with humor, danger, feels, and awkward relati...
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"Look, Nathan, right?" the man who hadn't molested him said.
Nathan couldn't unfold himself from where he was hunched against the wall. He was too terrified to lift his head and find one of the men leaning over him.
"You can hide all you want, but when you're done, we're still going to be here. The only thing that will change is my patience with you."
Nathan trembled as he pulled his hand from behind his neck and craned his neck up to the man in front of him. Meeting his dark hazel eyes shaded by his long blond hair, Nathan tucked his head nearer his shoulders and gripped his pantlegs so hard that his knuckles turned white in fear.
"See, not that hard." Tanner crouched in front of him, and an audible whine escaped Nathan's lips. The man's eyes narrowed, and Nathan flinched. With a sigh, Tanner rubbed his eyes. "As much as you don't like us, we're your roommates, and that's not going to change. Ian" –Tanner gestured to the man Nathan was incapable of looking at– "is an asshole, but he's an asshole to all of us, not just you. If you're easy prey, he's just going to keep at it, but he likes you flustered, not harmed. He won't bend you over a table, so just deal with it."
Deal with it? What was he supposed to do? Not panic when a man pushed him up against a wall and forced his lips on him?
Tanner stiffened his jaw, as if sensing Nathan's thoughts, and he swallowed hard.
"I'm Tanner, and pretty much the man in charge around here, though I'm also an inmate in this facility. You'll meet Mags later, the woman actually in charge, but she's awful with other human beings. I don't think the woman would know empathy if it slapped her in the face. I understand your plight, but I personally hate teenagers, so I'll have little patience with you if you don't listen and behave. Can you do those two things?" Hard jade eyes locked Nathan's as Tanner waited for a response.
Nathan rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. It did little to remove the feeling of the other man's lips from it, and he didn't put much stock in Tanner being any better. If he didn't respond though, he was going to lose patience.
"I... don't want any trouble," Nathan squeaked. He didn't know what this man wanted him to say, but he'd seen enough prison shows to understand that pissing off the man in power was the quickest way to a body bag.
"Good," Tanner said coldly.
"Should we kiss and make up?" Ian chuckled from where he was still leaning against the wall.
A cold sweat rolled down Nathan's neck, but it was frozen by a thwack, followed by a whine from Ian. Tanner had moved his arm so fast Nathan had barely followed it, but there was a knife planted in the wall next to Ian's face, and there was only one way it could have gotten there.
"I'm just trying to be friendly." Ian smirked, yanking the knife out of the wall as if it were normal for Tanner to be flinging them around in the house. "I think you dropped this."
