Blood and Bone | 1

1 | 8

     I followed the retreating back of Damien Hunt into the modern-looking ONNT building. The two times I'd been here in the past, I'd been chained in the dark, so understandably, it wasn't the most comfortable place for me.

     "They're with me," Hunt reassured the receptionist in a calm voice, who looked alarmed at us entering with her boss. Several bodyguards dressed in all black joined our group.

      When the elevator doors closed, Hunt pressed a button that was below ground floor. That meant wherever we were going was in the most secure part of the building: underground.

      Hunt led us down a series of wide passageways filled with doctors and scientists and down a few flights of stairs. At the end, we found ourselves crowded into a small room with a few more ONNT workers. The room was above a bigger, darker room and gave a perfect view of what was going on below.

      All that was visible in the concrete-walled room below was the terrorist we'd caught, her arms wrapped in a straitjacket and her legs bound to the metal chair. I knew from experience that the room we were in was shielded by one-way glass, enabling for us to view the woman without her seeing us.

      A psychiatric doctor with black curly hair walked into the room with a briefcase. As he sat down at a metal desk and spread out his papers on it, the woman's pale face raised slowly to watch him through the bulletproof glass.

      "Well," the doctor said in an unnaturally calm and cool voice. "Let's get started, shall we?"

      When the woman stayed silent, the doctor, who I knew as Azarius Bryson, asked calmly, "What is your name?"

The woman stayed silent, as I had in her place a year ago.

"Your name is Katerina Cabolso. Is this correct?"

Again, the woman didn't answer, only staring at Bryson as if she was simply waiting for the whole questioning to be over.

"Ms. Cabolso, I can't help you if you don't respond to me."

After a moment of silence, I thought she wouldn't talk, but she reluctantly stated in her French accent, "Yes, that was my name."

"Ms. Cabolso, do you know why you are here?"

This time, she answered straight away. "Yes."

If he was surprised by her sudden cooperation, Bryson didn't show it. "And why is that?"

"Because you find people like me a threat to your peace."

Bryson looked up from what he was writing on his papers. "Peace? What are you talking about?"

"You'd rather sit here and grasp onto it rather than face the fact that maybe the world is due for a change."

I moved closer to the glass, trying to make sense out of her rambling. "Ms. Cabolso, you're right. We do find you a threat to our peace. And that is why you're here."

He looked down at his papers and scribbled a few words. "Ms. Cabolso, were you working for or with anyone? If so, who was it?"