They drive for several hours. If he wakes up at any point, he'll hear them alternating between discussing the movie and playing a Silly Songs with Larry CD. They periodically check that he's still breathing, and are pretty sure he's not in danger of actually dying. At one point they stop at a rest stop; Naomi kills a middle-aged woman in the parking lot, drinks most of her blood, and tosses the corpse in the back of the van. They consider taking her car, but it isn't a very good car, so they leave it where it is. 

They pull into their base of operations around three o'clock in the morning. Z won't be able to see anything, but Imrainai carries him over a gravel driveway, through a door, down a flight of stairs, and through another door before setting him on the ground.

He drifts. They throw someone into the back with him, partway through, and...there’s a song about...pirates?

He wakes up more fully as they descend the stairs.

“...y’re...pretty different ‘n person...”

"Aren't I just," she says cheerfully, before removing the sack. 

He's in a basement room with no windows. The walls are stone. The door is metal. There's a sofa and an old TV in the corner, where a twelve-year-old girl and a guy who might have been a college student are playing Mario Kart on an old Gamecube. The girl has a piece of duct tape across her mouth, but is otherwise not restrained. She looks unamused, but not scared. The guy has his vampire face on. 

"So. You probably want answers, yeah?"

"...that would be nice," he says, because what else the fuck is he supposed to say.

"And I will totally give you some answers. But first you have to eat something, because you lost, like, threeish pints of blood? And if we don't get some calories in you then you're unfortunately gonna pass out again. Roman, did you order the pizza like I asked?"

"Oh, yeah, it's over there," says Roman, pointing. He unpauses the game, and the girl looks away from Z in order to focus on winning Mario Kart.

"Thank you," says Imrainai, politely, before retrieving a piece of pizza for Z. "Now, I'm gonna untie you, but I'm gonna warn you, sometimes people think they can escape? And you're super outgunned here, so you should really just eat the pizza."

He looks to his left.

He looks to his right.

“...yeah, I’m just gonna eat the pizza.”

If he’s going to escape he’s not doing it minus three pints of blood (fuck, that might be a new record for him) on an empty stomach, anyway.

"That's a good boy." 

She pats his head, unties his hands, and gives him the pizza.

...aww, don’t bring that kink into this too.

He eats the pizza. He would eat it slowly, as a show of resistance, or something, but he is really hungry and it’s actually pretty good pizza.

She giggles at him, then crosses the room and peels the duct tape off the girl's face. "Hi Zana! You have a fun weekend?"

"I was using the duct tape," mutters Zana. "It was OK. I need more books in Hindi when you go to the library."

"You are so smart! Was Roman a better sitter than Naomi? Be honest."

"Well the worst thing he did was lock me in a closet for thirteen hours? So yeah." Her character hits Roman with a shell, then crosses the finish line. There's confetti and some celebratory music. "Sucks at Mario Kart, but I think he's getting better. Is the guy a snack or a toy."

"Toy! Mayyyybe a minion eventually? But he's super off limits for eating, you can totally kick his ass at Mario Kart."

"Man, I dunno how I'm gonna contain my joy," says Zana, absolutely deadpan, looking right at Z.

What the fuck, he mouths at her.

Sorry, mouths Zana, because like, she's not unsympathetic? But she's also not very confident that they're going to leave this one alive long enough for anything she does to really matter.

"OK! So now that you've eaten, as promised, answers. I'm Imrainai, I'm a murderous demon, and this is my evil lair! It's still a work in progress. But a proper evil lair requires some captives and a dungeon full of spiky things - also a work in progress, by the way, but it'll be super cool when it's done - and last week I was like, you know who would make a great captive? Z! Can you guess why?"

“I thought you were a vampire,” he says weakly, aware that this is definitely the wrong thing to protest.

"Oh, yeah, I totally am! Vampires are a kind of demon that sets up shop in a human's skin, and then we go around wreaking havoc. Sort of a combined human-demon deal. All of the ruthlessness and evil of a demon, all of the creativity and boundless capacity for cruelty of humanity! It's great!"

So...this isn’t Imrainai. Not the one he knew, anyway.

(Also, not now, boner.)

“...why did you pick me. Other than...everything I’ve ever posted on the internet, ever.”

"Several reasons, actually! Masochists are a dime a dozen, and it's way more fun to torture people who're begging for mercy anyway, so if you guessed that that's all then you get no points. But it's really boring not having anyone to talk to. Roman and Naomi are great, but they lack a certain sense of aesthetics. And Zana's great, but I'm sooort of trying not to do any irreparable psychological damage to her fragile twelve-year-old psyche before I turn her, because there are some kinds of insanity that get more entrenched and untreatable after you become a vampire. But you! You're a human with a more or less perfectly functional conscience, so I can totally have fun gouging babies' eyes out in front of you. I don't super care if I drive you insane before I turn you, you could still be really fun if you were insane. But I'm hoping the torturey bits and the enslavement, like, aren't going to mess with your ability to offer commentary on Pixar movies? You just seem like you're down for lots of things!" 

She giggles at him.

"Oh! Also I think you're an interesting person. So congratulations. The boring ones get to be dead."

Sorry, he's kind of stuck on gouging babies' eyes out, here.

"Why. The fuck."

He glances quickly between Zana and Imrainai.

"Can't you–find some other way to torture me than–"

Wow that's strategically inadvisable. If she's trying to figure out how to really fuck with him he just told her how. He's gonna shut up now.

"Y'know, that was just an example, but I am totally putting that on my to-do list now. But yeah, I can find lots of other ways to torture you! Some of them will be horrible and some of them you will be very conflicted about. If you're good, I'll give you options! Now, do you need anything else right this second? 'Cause if not then I'm gonna let you get to know Zana, I think. Me and Roman have to go dig a skull out of a lady we killed, then treat it so we can add it to the skull throne. The skull throne is a work in progress, too, but it's gonna be super pretty when it's done."