Insurrection [On Hold]

6 Elves

He tilts his head to the side slowly as if it's being weighted down. "Playing?"

"I assume you know how to interrogate someone, Mr. Mycroft."

He studies me. "Why did you run away?"

I lean back. "I don't feel comfortable answering that question."

"You do realize this is an interrogation?"

I narrow my eyes and clench my teeth. "Make me uncomfortable."

He slams his fist on the table but I don't flinch. "Your sisters and brothers are disappointed in you. Do you want that?"

I harden my face.

"Your mother— the queen, and your father will disown you if they were to find out you ran away."

I look to the side, inhaling and exhaling calmly. Please, they already know I ran away. If they're going to disown me, it's only a matter of time.

He walks around the table and bends in front of me. "Now if you were taken, that changes things."

I roll my eyes. "Can't a big boy like you figure things out?"

He takes a strand of my black hair and twirls it around his finger. "If you were taken, what do you stand to lose?"

Nate's life, and I owe him mine. But he doesn't matter. A liar doesn't matter. A debt does though. "It depends on who I was taken by. Rebels, my soldiers. . . elves."

"Elves?"

"Yes, quite adorable, viscous things."

He stands up and walks behind my back. "Raksana, stop believing in fairy tales." He grips my shoulders, and my back tenses.

"I don't."

He clicks his tongue. "I'll give you one last chance. Did you or did you not run away?"

"Oh, Jonah, you don't scare me."

He removes one hand from me, and with his other he grips my neck, tilting my head back. I close my eyes. He won't kill me. He won't go that far. "You see this?" A cold object is placed upon my cheek and slid upward toward my eye, its edges leaving cuts. I drop my eyes and stare at the knife, holding my breath, my jaw trembling. "Now what if I turned it?" He does so and drags the sharp side around my eye and across my forehead. A slicing, crackling sound buzzes in my ear. The cut stings, and tears slip out of my eyes.

"Is someone breaking?" The knife falls to the dirt, and he grabs my chin, tilting my neck painfully to the side to look at him. "It's a simple question; one I'm sure your father will like to know when he returns from killing those rebels."

"Are those the ones I was supposed to help kill?"

"Why Raksana, you sound almost sympathetic. You didn't run off to join them, did you?"

I jerk my face out of his grip. "You dare question my loyalty to this country?"

"My dear, princess"-- he bends down, retrieving the knife-- "everyone questions your loyalty."

I eye the knife warily. Nate will die anyway. These soldiers won't let the rebels' leader live. Maybe if I say I was taken by rebels they'll let me go home, thinking I'm not fit for the army. "Does my father question my loyalty?"

"Should I?" I hear my father ask.