In the last days before the tenth, Daniel had made a conscious effort to act normal and hide his anxiety from his friends. He did not contact either Vlad nor Rosalie. (When Rosalie passed her usual time of attendance, Daniel naturally assumed she had found something better to do, and was grateful for it rather than being excessively hurt; the development was something he had expected almost as soon as this babysitting business began.) He made a point to be on the forums, talking with his general acquaintance in a casual, even humorous manner. He didn't entirely need to fake his rather vicious mockery of William, and he enjoyed the subsequent talk with Ella simply because he liked talking with Ella, even when he had nothing to say. Aside from that, however, he waited. The calendar pages and notes only served to heighten the paranoia and the anxiety, a purpose for which they were no doubt intended. He hid those away in his study where, he thought, they might be found to explain events if he was not... not present to do so.
In the last hours, Daniel's chief worry was, oddly, Kat. The kitten was a harmless ball of fur, but despite his protesting, Daniel was well aware that he probably could not bear to see something happen to the stupid little thing, and as such Vaughn would find a way to hurt her if he was not careful. He thought of lending her to someone, but knew that would incite too much suspicion. He thought of sending her down to Ella, but that too would bring the damned curious woman straight up here, and the thought of her and Vaughn in the same room made Daniel's spine turn to ice in his body. In the end, he decided that when Vaughn came, he would lock her in the study. There could be no safer place, save outside, where she might hide, yet the weather made the fog itself turn to ice, and he didn't want Kat outside in it.
On the tenth, sleep was absolutely out of the question. He hadn't slept much on the ninth or the eighth either, and while he tried to remember to eat things as everyone was always nagging him to, he found that he didn't have much of an appetite even after the drugs had been reduced to almost nothing. He wasn't neglecting himself on purpose; he just forgot to be hungry. He was pacing with a book in his hand--he hardly knew what the title was--when the shotgun sound at the door made him jump an inch off the carpet and freeze like a deer in a vulnerable field. He stared at the door, as if it might swing open of its own accord, but it did not. Finally, fighting to drug limbs that were ice in weight and temperature, he made it across the room and squinted through the eye into the hallway.
She came herself, then.
Still frozen, now almost automatic, he turned the locks--slowly, one by one--and then pushed down on the new, shining bronze door handle... and pulled it back, stepping back with it.