A Queen's Dark Prison

Chapter 10: Interrogation

-Raiden-

“Okay, let’s try this one more time. Where is she?” I demanded, grabbing one of the male’s fingers, ready to bend it the wrong way.

The male shook, tied to a chair with a cloth stuffed into his mouth. Despite this, he shook his head, still not ready to divulge anything. Kenzo and I had lost the trail on the queen. We were in Germany now, but we had no idea if she had already left the country.

She was out there somewhere, and we needed to know if someone had seen anything, and hurting people who followed Connor was just a treat. It was satisfying to defy the bastard, not that this little underling would do much harm to his empire. Yet it was still entertaining, especially when that crunchy sound echoed in the dark room and the male screamed into the cloth.

“We are wasting time here,” Kenzo remarked, sitting on another chair further away, tipping it backwards, looking bored as hell. But I knew my friend was not someone to underestimate.

Sadly, he had practiced self-control his whole life, so I knew he didn’t want to be the one to do the torturing. He liked blood too much. It was better not to tempt the beast.

“I’m working,” I insisted.

“No, you’re wasting time. He hasn’t seen her,” he asserted.

“How do you know?” I questioned, crossing my arms.

Kenzo sighed, tipping the chair forward and then finally standing. He walked over to the male tied to the chair, pulling the cloth from his mouth before looking the male in the eyes—or eye. I had kind of ruined the other.

“Have you seen the queen running around here?” he interrogated.

The male shook his head and answered in German, “Nein.“

“See,” Kenzo concluded, stuffing the cloth into his mouth again.

“You’re just taking his word for it?” I challenged, raising an eyebrow.

“The male has pissed himself.”

I glanced at the male, noticing the wet stain I had not noticed before. Kenzo was very good at reading people. I was good at extracting information from them.

Together, we just worked wonders, and Kenzo always knew when someone had reached their limits. If they were still claiming not to know what we asked them about, then he knew they spoke the truth.

“I’m not cleaning it up,” he said, walking back to his chair to sit. “He knows nothing, like I told you.”

“He was following her.”

“And he most likely lost the trail as well.”

“Why are you always acting like such a know-it-all?” I demanded, making him smile as he placed his hands behind his head and looked like he had all the time in the world.

“Because I do know it all,” he asserted.

“Piss off!”

That made him laugh.

“Sometimes it’s not about beating the sh*t out of people. Sometimes it’s about reading them,” he suggested.

“You always act so damn wise. You know how annoying that is?” I remarked.

“Oh, I know it’s annoying.”

“Good luck to the female who gets stuck with you,” I jested, smiling teasingly.

“Funny, I was going to say the same thing about you.”

I gave him the finger before I grabbed the knife I kept hidden in my shoe, turning to the scared little scout we had come across, who was undoubtedly following the queen as well. He looked from the knife up at me, scared, knowing this was the end.

“I would ask for any last words, but I really don’t care,” I declared, stabbing him right in the heart.

He struggled a little, groaning into the cloth, until he turned still. I pulled the knife from him, seeing how the blood flowed.

“Great. He’s a bleeder...”

“Good luck cleaning all of that up,” Kenzo chuckled.

“You could give me a hand.”

“I told you to leave him, that he was not worth it.”

“I thought he might know something,” I explained.

“But he didn’t, and now the bastard is dead. You know this will come back to bite us, right?” he remarked.

“Do tell me how.”

Kenzo lowered his arms and placed them on his thighs instead, leaning forward with his eyes meeting mine.

“You don’t think Connor keeps track of his people?” he questioned.

“Important people? Yes. Underlings? No,” I replied.

“He will want reports. The queen is out here, and she is his target. He is keeping track of how it is going. I can promise you that,” he asserted, sounding so sure.

When he sounded like that, I couldn’t help but doubt myself. Maybe he is onto something, I thought, but I was glad he made me doubt. I could be quite impulsive, not thinking far into the future, whereas Kenzo was so very different.

He always thought five steps ahead, but it had been crucial for him to tame his wilder sides. People like him shouldn’t live as long as he had, and with good reason, but he had beaten the odds, and now he was my best friend.

“F*ck,” I muttered, looking at the dead male in front of us.

“What’s done is done. It was not like you could release him,” Kenzo remarked.

I nodded. “But now Connor knows we are getting close to the queen as well. That means he will try to make it harder for us or send more after her.”

“That he will,” Kenzo acknowledged, not sounding very concerned, but he never did.

“Any suggestions?” I inquired, looking over my shoulder at him.

“Don’t die.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Anything else?” I prompted.

“Don’t get caught.”

I sighed, shaking my head. “I mean, can we distract Connor?”

“Does the male have a phone on him? I mean, did you even check his pockets?” Kenzo asked.

Kenzo had advised me not to go after this scout, but I had done it anyway, and he knew me. Trying to stop me was not a good idea, so instead, he just watched over me, as he always did.

“Of course, I checked his pockets!” I retorted, reaching into my own and finding a phone.

I threw it to Kenzo, who smiled and started to look through it.

“Dammit... password,” he muttered before getting up from his chair and walking over to me.

He crouched down in front of the dead male and took his hand, pressing his thumb to the screen so the phone would unlock.

“Thank you,” he said, standing up again. “And done with the password.”

Soon, he was scrolling fast through the phone, most likely looking for clues as to who he had been in contact with lately.

“Sh*t, they seem to only be calling each other. No texts.”

“So it would be weird if we sent one now?” I suggested.

Kenzo just smiled and shook his head. “We aren’t doing anything except keeping this phone turned on and charged.”

“What?!” I exclaimed, confused.

“They are most likely tracking each other. We are taking it with us, and when they start to suspect anything, we throw this little one into the sea or some lake or crush it under our boot. Until then, it comes with us.”

“Right, give them a direct map to us, that is not a bad idea,” I said sarcastically.

“That’s why I said that when they start suspecting anything, we get rid of it. Until then, they need to see us moving around and working, so they don’t suspect anything, and we need to work faster.”

“Do you think I have been sleeping or something?” I asked, knowing both of us had barely gotten a chance to rest. But for some reason, I looked more tired.

Kenzo, weirdly, always had a lot of energy, like he didn’t need to sleep much. I knew why. But it was unfair.

“We need to find the queen, and fast,” he said before pointing to the dead male. “Now clean up. Don’t leave any traces behind!”

He then started to walk away, leaving the abandoned house where I had tied up the male. I sighed, knowing this cleanup was going to delay us a bit.