Fallen University: Year Three
The woman narrowed her eyes at me. “I’ve read your file. I know you’ve been subjected to this kind of questioning on multiple occasions. Are you saying you don’t think it’s effective?”
Shit. She had me there.
People could be trained to fool a polygraph test relatively easily. But I only knew one person who’d managed to keep something hidden from a magical interrogation—Kingston. And that had only been because of his dragon’s ability to protect treasure.
I shrugged. “Just making conversation. No harm meant.”
“Wait until you’re asked a question before speaking,” Gregory snapped. “Keep the commentary to yourself, and refrain from questioning Director Price’s methods.”
“Wait. Director?” I glanced at the older woman again, my eyes widening. “You run this place?”
“Yes.” She lifted one eyebrow a fraction of an inch. “Does that surprise you?”
“Well, no,” I said. “It’s just, with how inefficiently things are done around here sometimes, and how out of touch you guys are, I sort of thought it would be some old dude. You know, like him.” I jerked my chin toward Gregory, whose cheeks flushed a dark red in outrage and annoyance.
I swore I saw Director Price’s lips twitch just slightly, but her face was impassive as she waved Gregory silent and asked, “You think we do things inefficiently? That we’re out of touch?”
“Um, yeah. Sometimes.” I clamped my mouth shut before I could get started on a rant. If I answered her question with complete honesty, I wasn’t so sure she’d want to listen to my warning after that.
“I mean, you seem smart,” I added, shrugging evasively. “But you’re the first person from this organization besides Dru who’s been willing to listen to what we have to say, rather than just writing us off as a bunch of dangerous, delinquent fallen.”
Some people might’ve preened under the compliment, but Director Price barely even acknowledged it. She gazed at me seriously for another moment, then turned to the team of four who had gathered around me.
“You may begin.”
The process of being interrogated was just as emotionally draining and painfully exhausting as I remembered, but it helped a little that I was eager to spill my guts. There wasn’t anything I was trying to hide from the Custodians—at this point, I wanted them to know everything.
By the time I finished, my cheeks were wet with tears. They’d started as I described finding Xero chained up in a dungeon at Gavriel’s fortress and hadn’t really stopped since then.
Silence fell over the room, broken only by my muffled sniffs as I tried to keep snotty tears from dripping out of my nose. Let a
girl keep some dignity, huh?
Director Price looked even more serious than she had before, although I didn’t know how that was humanly possible. She gave a single nod.
“You are dismissed. Wait outside while we question the others.”
I stood, surreptitiously wiping my nose with the sleeve of my shirt. On the way to the door, I blinked as many times as I could, trying to somehow hide the fact that I’d been crying.
Not that it mattered. Even if my eyes had been completely dry, the guys could sense my emotions as clearly as if I’d shouted them from the rooftops. Xero and Kai were on their feet in an instant, striding over to me quickly. Jayce joined them a second later, and Kingston grabbed my hand briefly on his way inside the room.
We all sat again, and Hannah gave me a quavering smile that was half sympathy and half terror. She’d only done this once, and I could tell she was petrified.
Each interrogation probably took upward of an hour, but from where we sat in the antechamber, they only seemed to last a few minutes. Kai was the last one in, and before long, he stepped back through the doors, followed closely by Gregory and Director Price.
The curt, take-no-nonsense woman didn’t linger at all. She walked quickly across the room, the heels of her boots tapping on the floor, barely turning to glance back at us as she instructed, “Come with me.”
“Well, we’re not dead yet,” I murmured to Jayce as we made our way through another maze of hallways and up a set of stairs.
“Wow. So optimistic.” He shot me a grin, although his eyes were a little glassy from the lingering effects of his interrogation. “Who are you, and what did you do with my girlfriend?”
“I’m turning over a new leaf,” I joked quietly. “From now on, I’m only going to believe in positive outcomes.” Then I glanced over at him. “Is that what I am?”
“What?”
“Your girlfriend?”
He wrinkled his brow, thinking. I could see one of our Custodian escorts eyeing us curiously, but I ignored the guy. This conversation didn’t concern him.