Chapter 5: Interrogation

Those who have captured him wish to know more from Alexis than he can give, but if he doesn't, there will be consequences.

The slightly bruised men lifted Alexis to his feet and dragged him somewhat as he still recovered from the earlier shock"both physical and mental. The woman led the way and the young man stayed anxiously behind, pursing his lips and not looking at anything but his feet. They exited the examination room and walked tensely down the hallway and turned into a brightly-lit room with a table in the middle. On one side of the table, an empty chair sat with security belts attached to its arms. On the other side of the table, a less empty chair faced it, but its occupant looked even less pleasant than its opposite. 

General Marx looked from the female officer in the lead to Alexis"bound and looking dejected"who stared at the floor as the men at either side of him guided him in.

“Ran into some trouble, I see,” remarked the General in a conversational sort of way.

“Nothing we couldn’t handle, Sir.” The woman stepped pulled the empty chair away from the table and watched as her peers secured the winged nonhuman into it. She then carefully pushed the chair back into place and exited the room with her fellow agents. All three stood guard just outside.

“I warned you, but it seems your ears must not be of human caliber. Maybe you’ll understand me if I speak louder,” the General said, his words cased in ice.

Alexis kept his head down and bit his lip as his fists clenched in their static positions, attached to the arms of the chair. Paying no mind to this, the General’s hands rifled through some papers in front of him and casually pulled out a yellowed document.

“Says here you came from a harpy settlement in the mountains between Russia and Kazakhstan… the Ural Mountain range, if I’m not mistaken,” he said, as though not reading directly from the paper before him. He smiled coldly as the nonhuman across from him stiffened at his words.

“You would be amazed with how proficient our research department is at finding out this sort of information. We may not know the exact location nor how it came to be that a dragon ended up there, too, but I’m positive you can help fill in the blanks.” The General’s eyes narrowed as they slid from the papers to the rigid nonhuman. “We would especially like to know just where that dragon went, because we both know dragons don’t mix well with others.

“So"“he said, sneering,”"where is it?”

Alexis felt a shiver go down his spine as the General bored into him with his steady glare. His mouth stayed pursed as his mind drew a blank.

General Marx put down the worn paper, crossed his hands in front of him, leaned forward, and eyed Alexis with a mixture of morbid curiosity and…something else. The darkness in his eyes"which Alexis had a hard time meeting"held some sort of deep-seeded hate in them; a hate Alexis had no desire to face.

“Remember when I told you how we got your siren friend to tell us your location?” Marx asked pointedly, smirking as the nonhuman before him flinched. “Well, the same trick works time and time again on those like you who have joined others like you in your tucked-away clubs. It doesn’t always work, of course, but for the Doctor’s sake, you really should answer my questions in the most honest way you can. 

“As they say,” Marx said, in an almost bored tone, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I’m sure the same goes with both sirens and half-breeds.”

Alexis’s mind raced as he absorbed the threats made against not only him but his friends. He couldn’t give them any information that they wanted because he didn’t have any. His entire reason"or one of them, anyway"for being this far from those settlements was to find the dragon that these people at this…”facility” wanted to know about. He neither wanted to aid these manipulative people nor allow his friends to be hurt, so he had to play it by ear and walk on a thin line between honesty and untruth.

“I don’t know,” he said in almost a whisper as he tried to think of something to give them so they wouldn’t think he was lying.

“Really? You have no idea where your parent is,” sneered the General. “You are thousands of miles from that harpy settlement, living apart from them? And I thought harpies liked to stick to their flock. How strange that you’ve ventured out this far from them.” He sat up in his seat and stared contemptuously at the top of the nonhuman’s bowed head.

“Are you sure you didn’t travel here with said dragon? I’m sure you would, seeing as it must be one of your parents.”

“No. I didn’t,” Alexis said, straining his words. “Why is it so important to you?”

“For one thing,” said Marx, voice mildly annoyed, “I am asking the questions here. I have already explained to you how dangerous you and your kind are. You really shouldn’t have to ask why we need to know the location of such a creature. You are only half dragon and you have proven to be a threat to the general public within just moments of meeting you. I don’t want to think of the kind of damage a full-blooded dragon could do, and since we have yet to register any which match your species, your parent must also be on the lam.”

General Marx’s tone became silky and low as he leaned closer to Alexis, now pushing photographs into his line of vision with a hand.

“Now, where is the dragon?”

Alexis’s eyes widened as he looked over photos of Aisling, Jasper, and Dante"Jasper’s brother. They all wore the same, drab scrubs as he did, and when he looked at the mug shots more closely, he noticed small barcodes tattooed on the sides of their heads"just behind the ear and on the neck. His gaze moved towards the side of his head, but of course he saw nothing. Unsure of what these people intended to do to his friends, Alexis slowly faced General Marx with an expression of equal fear and contempt.

“I. Don’t. Know.” 

Marx’s brows furrowed and teeth showed slightly as he pulled the photographs back in and placed them in an envelope. 

“Fine. Then perhaps you should elaborate on just what you are doing so very far from home, before I tell my men to bring one of your friends in here to help you explain.”

Author's Note

I'm a bit iffy on the pacing in this chapter. Opinions?