Time passed slowly when pain and fear governed every moment. Sleeping and waking mingled blearily due to the limited artificial light, which left the other senses to sharpen insidiously. Occasionally, the effect was unreliable; shadows moved in ways that were physically impossible, and disjointed conversations took place in the exclusive company of the gagged and the dead. And when that company was joined by thugs with thumbscrews, it was no longer unpredictable, just a weary dance of playing tired chicken with information that could hurt many other Numbered individuals. Starving and sleep-deprived after nearly a full week of torture, both L and Tony were in rough shape, but their ordeal was uneven; Tony had suffered the brunt of the physical anguish, and the comparatively brittle L had been saddled with the burden of watching, with the power to stop it all for the modest price of betraying everything he'd worked to protect.

Slumped in his chair, L rocked back on the leg he imagined to be slightly less sturdy than the others, with the same odd satisfaction a child might get from wiggling a loose tooth. He wasn't sure why he continued to persist as though there was any chance of escape; maybe it was purely the way Tony looked, beaten bloody with grey-tinged skin that said he couldn't take much more, but L couldn't just give up on the promise he had made to get Tony out of this. He had not been able to save Moises, and to lose Tony as well would be to lose his ability to live with himself, regardless of whether or not Albero's people killed him.

The door slid open again, much sooner than L had expected it to, and he braced himself for another session. If Tony succumbed today, it was true that L wouldn't be able to live with himself, but if the detective spoke, he wouldn't be able die peacefully, either.