Charlotte Owens twisted in her seat, clasping and unclasping her hands on the metal table in front of her. "I have told you a dozen times already," she growled through gritted teeth.
"Well, I would love for you to tell me again," Maxwell Smith smirked at her.
Charlotte sighed and leaned back in her chair, running her tongue over her teeth. "You know what, I don't really feel like explaining it to you again," she sighed, scowling at him. "Perhaps when you decide you are ready to listen to me..."
"Ah Miss Owens, you know that won't work with me. I decide when we are done here. You see we need to find out everything we can about your kind," he exhaled, his smile unfaltering.
Charlotte cast a bored expression at Maxwell, ignoring the sweat patches that stained his shirt, the slick sheen of perspiration that speckled his forehead, even the five o'clock shadow that had started to appear over his jaw and cheeks, a hazy blur of grey and black marring his pock-marked skin.
Maxwell Smith was in his early sixties, and wore an irritating smug smile at most times. It was as if he was trying to disguise his worn-out, stressed appearance, by proving himself to be an irritating, condescending ass.
Yet Charlotte could easily see past this show, to the high-strung agent they had been sent to interrogate them all. She had searched his mind early on in their days in the compound, pulling out his fears and dissecting them, just to pass some of the time she had had to spend with him cooped up in the tiny interrogation room.
He wasn't that bad really. None of them were, even if she was only comparing them to Kingston, but their rescuers wanted to know everything. And Charlotte had told them everything – everything she knew, but still they wanted more. They always wanted more.
"Do you think they could turn down the heating?" she asked after a moment, resting her chin in her hand as she leaned against the table.
"Getting a little uncomfortable are we?" he asked, his grin stretching.
Charlotte chuckled and rolled her eyes. "It's not for me, Maxie," she winked. "If you sweat anymore through that shirt it's going to turn see-through, and that is not something any of us want to see".
Maxwell's grin faltered and he stood up straighter, his expression growing darker. "Miss Owens, could you drop the attitude? We are just trying to understand your kind a little bit better".
Charlotte leaned forward and heaved a heavy sigh. "Ok, start with not referring to us as your kind. We are human – despite what you and your facility thinks. We are only like this because you ultimately failed to protect us in the beginning. So it would be great if you could stop treating us like we are either contagious, disease-ridden freaks or that we are some alien lifeform". Charlotte's tone was immeasurably calm, patronising at best.
"Okay, Miss Owens," Maxwell sighed, sitting down in the seat opposite. He exhaled slowly, forcing his shoulders down. Charlotte half-smiled, wondering if he was conscious of the little idiosyncrasies that revealed his thoughts to her. "I am truly sorry if I have offended you in any way by my choice of words, and I would like to continue to work with you towards better understanding..." he frowned trying to choose his words carefully.
"Us monsters?" she simpered.
"You are impossible," he snapped through gritted teeth, running his hands over his meaty face.
"As I have said, I have already told you exactly what I know about life on the island. I am sorry but Elmhirst did not make me privy to the techniques he used to alter us," she said, speaking each word slowly and clearly as if he was hard of hearing. "It may surprise you, but I wasn't his favourite student".
By the flicker of anger that crossed his features, Charlotte realised he understood this well. "I'm done with this. You are just impossible," he snapped, standing up and knocking over his chair, with a loud clatter. Charlotte was accustomed to this being her signal to leave.
"Well, it has been a pleasure as always Maxie," she sighed, standing up too and extending her hand. "Same time tomorrow?"
Maxwell glared at her, ignoring her hand hanging in mid-air.
"I see we're sulking," she exhaled. "Well I hope you come with a better attitude tomorrow. And you might want to tell those people watching us through the cameras to turn down the heat. I've been trained to withstand these banal interrogation techniques," she grinned at him. "Come on Maxie, get your head out of the dirt". She knew she was merely tormenting him for entertainment, but she couldn't deny she was enjoying it.
"Get out," he hissed, his face turning puce.
"Wow, your kind really have such poor people skills," she smirked, opening the door and winking at him before letting it fall closed behind her.
She just caught the string of profanities falling from his mouth, before the latch caught and Maxwell disappeared from sight.
She chuckled a little half-heartedly as she began to trace the path back to their living-quarters. It was the same routine every day, and honestly she didn't mean to be so infuriating, but they were making it impossible to be amiable. She had been kinder to them in the beginning, but on the twentieth time they had asked her what processes took place in the hospital at Kingston, or what drugs were used in the gel darts, she had lost all patience. It was as if they thought the students were keeping secrets from them.
It had almost been three months since they had been brought to the disused army compound that had become their home, far away from all other signs of humanity surrounded by rocks, dirt and ice. It had been almost three months of interrogations, tests, experiments, scientists, military officials, doctors, nurses, injections, blood-tests, scans... The list was endless.
Charlotte was not the only one beginning to lose patience with them. They had promised that they would assimilate them back into society. They had promised they would notify their families of their existence. They had promised and promised and their promises seemed to be coming up empty every time.
Hope had faded from many of the students as their time at the compound stretched perpetually on and on, without any sign of change. It seemed that they had simply been moved from one prison to the next, from Kingston Academy, to a disused army compound on a barren peninsula surrounded by frothing, icy waves and barren hills and mountains.
There were positives however. Punishment didn't exist, though they had all been forbidden to use their alterations unless ordered to. Charlotte didn't know one student who had kept this promise, though those looking after them didn't seem to notice at all. And even though the interrogations were long and drawn out, they were nothing like those experienced at Kingston under the watchful eye of their former headmaster, John Elmhirst, or his weasel-faced sidekick, Bennett.
And then there was James.
Charlotte could feel the smile spread across her face as the mere thought of him. Being with him made everything easier. Nothing seemed that bad when she knew he was waiting for her at the end of it.
Charlotte stepped out of the interrogation hut as they called it. It wasn't a hut but a long, low building without any windows and only one door to access it. It was guarded by two armed soldiers, who didn't look at her as she appeared, though she could taste their fear.
"Good evening," she smiled at them. They didn't respond. Charlotte rolled her eyes and turned away from them, continuing towards the vast network of buildings the students lived in. It was dark as she crossed the yard, a million stars scattered above her, the solemn moon hanging above the silhouetted mountains in the distance.
The compound was huge, acres upon acres of flat, concreted-land hemmed in by a fifteen-foot chain-link fence. It was nestled in a flat-bottom valley, hills rising up on either side, brown, craggy hills without sign of life or vegetation. To the south-east great, rugged mountains rose, capped with stark white ice, which glowed an ethereal silver in the moonlight. Trees were a rare enough sight around the compound, with only a few stark deciduous trees, bare of all leaves, standing sentinel near the compound gates. They leaned inland, twisted and deformed after years of harassment from the howling sea gales that came rushing up from the bay below them, the same spot where their ship had docked and trucks had waited to carry them to their new home.
The compound was a network of long, low buildings, painted a dirty grey-brown colour that allowed them to blend into the hills. Minimum thought was given to windows and doors, and the students often found themselves sheltering indoors, with little idea of the time of day, just to escape the biting cold air outside. Soldiers were a constant sight in the compound, moving from one place to the next, always armed, always watching the students, their expressions always filled with deep suspicion.
Charlotte hurried across the yard, pulling the collar of her insulated jacket up in some effort to shelter from the icy, night air. The double doors to the canteen loomed ahead of her, bringing with them the promise of warmth and a hot meal.
She had almost reached the shelter of the canteen when her alteration stirred, its aggression taking her back by surprise.
She felt him before she saw him. She stumbled to a halt, her gaze fixed on the shadows of their living quarters. His hatred surfaced for a moment, the fear exuding from him. Charlotte's stomach knotted, as she glanced back to the guards she had just passed. She had hoped they would be a witness against this unknown threat, but they had already left. She was alone in the yard, alone with him.
He stepped out of the light and with it the fear and hatred vanished, as if he sucked his emotions in, drawing them inside, until he was nothing but a shell, a smiling, empty shell.
"Miss Owens," the man said, his voice a low whisper.
Charlotte took a step back.
The man had a broad, square face with sagging cheeks, lined by age and experience. His small eyes seemed the deepest black, obsidian almost, in the darkness of the night. Thick grey-black brows cast deep shadows across the plains of his face, arching down towards his round, broad nose, upon which balanced a pair of unadorned spectacles. His thin lips were out of proportion with his face, their corners twitching without rest as if unsure whether to laugh or to grimace. Steel grey hair framed his face, slicked back with heavy wax, and marked with the concentric tracks created by his comb.
He was a tall man, with broad shoulders and a rounded belly. He was wearing a simple black coat that reached his knees, and the red scarf tied about his thick neck did little to help distinguish it from the rest of his body.
He extended a gloved hand towards her, smiling gently.
Charlotte hesitated. Play the game, she thought, remembering the only three words that had helped her to survive Kingston. Only then she had known the game, she had known what they wanted her to be, what they had wanted her to do – this man was different. She didn't know what he wanted her to be, she didn't know yet what would save her from him.
"Good evening," she said, greeting him. His grip was weak despite his obvious strength, too soft and limp.
He smiled, a smile that didn't leave his mouth, his eyes narrowing as he stepped back and appraised her. "You've had us on quite a run around," he said, his words lacking all feeling.
"I..." Charlotte frowned. She could feel her cheeks burning, her head spinning as adrenaline coursed through her veins, telling her to run.
"You know you don't look different," he exhaled, reaching forward and catching her chin gently tilting her head to examine her. Charlotte froze, too wary to react, too uncertain of his motives to defend herself.
"Different from what?" she breathed, taking another step away from the man once he had released her.
"Different from..." he began twirling his hand in the air as if summoning the word he wanted, the corners of his mouth twitching as he searched for it. "...normal people".
"Normal people?" she whispered.
"I am not sure of what I expected really – I think maybe I thought you would look like monsters," he chuckled to himself. "I must have a very effective imagination. You don't look like monsters, do you?"
"No," Charlotte said trying to keep her irritation from her voice.
"Wolves in sheep's clothing, then," he smiled, his dark eyes narrowing and for a moment she felt it again, the fear, a great pulse of hatred that made her stumble back.
"Excuse me?" she gasped, trying to ignore the sudden urge from her alteration to attack, too defend her, but even as she straightened her thoughts, the sense of fear was gone again.
"You could blend in with civilised people very easily," he said, with an unfaltering amusement.
"Why does this surprise you so much?" Charlotte asked, fighting to keep the edge from her voice.
"It doesn't surprise me – it amuses me perhaps," he sniffed.
"How? How could you possibly to find that amusing?"
The man stared at her for a moment, before shrugging. He took two steps towards her, his polished shoes clicking against the concrete beneath their feet. He gripped her arm, his fingers digging into her muscles. She gritted her teeth, refusing to show her discomfort, the air around him suddenly pulsating with fear and hatred once more. He pulled her close, his lips moving to her ear. "I must have a very warped sense of humour," he exhaled, his breath hot against her skin.
Charlotte dragged herself out of his grasp, her breathing uneven and her alteration struggling once more to break free.
"Good evening, Miss Owens," he smiled, his obsidian eyes glinting in the moonlight. He turned and stalked away from her, disappearing into the shadows, leaving her trembling and alone in the yard.
Thanks as always for reading! I would ask before you continue, if you could vote and leave a comment of what you think of the story so far! Really appreciated! XD