The following few days are so normal, and Thorne is so nice that Jin almost forgets there ever was a problem, and that he probably shouldn’t be trusting Thorne. The more time they spend together, the more attached he gets to him and the more he likes him.

Since the day they spent together, Jin doesn’t know whether it’s imagination, but Thorne has somehow seemed less cold, and Jin has actually seen him smile a few times. He feels like he won’t actually want to leave here even when he’s able to, not just because he most likely will have to fix some things with his job, but also because he’s gotten so used to Thorne.

It seems that Thorne is still busy at work even after the weekend though, as although he tries to spend some time with Jin, they sometimes eat late, and Thorne is often shut in in his room.

In the morning of one of the days when Jin sits down to eat breakfast Thorne has already eaten. ‘Sorry I can’t eat with you. I got a call and I have to go out for a few hours. Like I said before, you can eat or drink anything in the house, feel free to paint or read or whatever else you want to do. I’ll be back as soon as possible.’

‘Don’t worry about me, have a good day.’

With that Thorne leaves, and Jin stays alone. Jin eats his breakfast and goes to his room, since he’s decided not to explore the house anymore. He just wants to enjoy his time with Thorne and chooses to ignore whatever happened since whatever it was doesn’t seem to be a threat to him now.

 However, in just an hour he hears a strange noise from somewhere in the house. It sounds like few things bump into each other, and he hears something fall. After he hears it again a few minutes later, he decides to look where it’s coming from. He walks around the first floor, but he doesn’t see anything unusual.

When he walks fast the door of Thorne’s bedroom, he notices the sound came from there. He hesitates for a moment but decides to go in anyway. The room is bigger than he expected. There is a king-sized bed in the middle of the room, placed with the head side against a wall. The bedding is wine red. There is a table with a chair, and there are a few closets. There also are quite a lot of plants. Attached to the room is also a balcony, and Jin soon knows the source of the sounds. The door to the balcony is slightly opened, and it seems a small bird flew inside and made a few little items fall from the table.

Jin quickly opens the door wider, and the bird luckily flies outside. Then he picks up the papers and other things that the bird knocked over and puts them back in their place. As he’s doing that, a package at the bedside catches his eye. It’s that package Silver gave Thorne last time, right? Even though he promised himself he wouldn’t look around the house anymore, he can’t resist the curiosity he’s feeling.

He carefully takes the package. It’s a long rectangular bag with a box in it. He carefully opens it, and inside is a wine bottle. Again with the wine bottles when he was expecting something more.

Jin carefully takes the wine bottle out and sees it’s only half full. It seems Thorne already tasted it. Jin kind of wants to try it too, and since Thorne said he could eat or drink anything in the house, he decides to pour a little bit into a glass to try it. It smells nice, but there is also a weird scent mixed in. When Jin takes a sip, it hits him what the smell is. The wine tastes and smells like blood. It’s too late for Jin to spit it out as he’s already swallowed it. His whole body starts tingling, and he feels completely awake.

He quickly closes the bottle and puts it away. All the doubts he tried to ignore over the past days come flooding back. Why is there a bottle of blood mixed with something in Thorne’s room? And since it’s the thing Silver gave him, his previous guess that Silver might know something suddenly became more likely.

Jin suddenly remembers another thing. There is a wine cellar in the house. He shivers but goes to check whether his guess is right.

He carefully goes down to the cellar again. First, he takes a random bottle, and tries a little of it. This does seem to be regular wine. Then he turns to another shelf and takes another bottle, with a slightly different color. When he opens it, the smell of blood hits him again. He tastes just a tiny bit to confirm it, and indeed, it’s as he guessed. Some of the bottles down here are also filled with blood. He an also guess what the smell coming from the locked freezer in the kitchen is that he couldn’t identify last time.

Jin is mortified. Where did that amount of blood come from? Why is it stored in the mansion, what for? Also, the bottle in Thorne’s room was opened. Does that mean he drank it?!

He’s getting very uneasy but doesn’t know what to do. Suddenly he thinks back at another incident. When he was at the club with Silver’s friends, out of the two guys that stuck together, one bit the others neck. At the time, Jin thought it was just something weird they were into. But now he looks at it differently. Was that guy licking the others blood? And Jin just let another guy try it out on him.

So did that guy at the club drink his blood? But why? If Jin didn’t know better, he’d think they weren’t human but something out of a fantasy movie. He laughs. How did he get into this mess? Is there any way out? How should he act when Thorne comes back? What way is the least likely to get him killed?

At that moment he hears the door open. Thorne’s back. Since Jin hasn’t come up with a plan yet and doesn’t know exactly what kind of crimes are going on here, he decides to go with the simplest thing. He’ll act as if he knows nothing till he knows enough or has a plan to escape.

He goes to the door and greets Thorne with a smile. That evening they eat dinner together as usual.