From The Ashes [#NaNoWriMo16]

Chapter Eight - Quinton Mattos

"If you find me so dangerous, why is air still getting to my lungs?"

"Because I'm letting it," came the loud, growling answer. Quin had been tied to a chair for what he assumed was weeks, just rotting in an old, worn down building in the city. Apparently, it belonged to a furniture company, but they ran out of money, and no one wanted the building. So Quin's captor – Jerome Tulith – had taken it upon himself to buy it and use it as his 'illegal-work' building. He used to be a Keeri soldier, until he was caught blackmailing his captain with false information. He was then kicked out and onto the streets, where he used the last of his money to buy this old, piece-of-shit stone building to under-go all his illegal activities. So far, it worked; no one could hear Quin screaming on the eighth floor. He'd given up, after a few days.

"What are you waiting for?" Quin hissed, scowling at Tulith as he paced slowly back and forth in front of his hostage. "End me; why wait?"

"Because we want to know what your trigger is," Tulith growled, and Quin raised an eyebrow.

"My trigger?" he echoed. "What are you talking about?" He watched as a fat rat scuttled from the corner of the room towards the door, pausing before running out.

"The thing that makes your brain switch between its two souls," Tulith continued, scratching his bushy chin with a rather large blade. "We want to know what it is, so we can... play around, with it."

"If my second soul is as mad as I think it is," Quin muttered, "then 'playing around' with it is the last thing you will want to do. Either kill me or let me go; it will be better for you either way, trust me."

"I've seen this 'second soul' of yours up close," Tulith snapped, leaning into Quin's face. His breath smelled of tuna and ale, and his face wasn't so pleasing to look at from this angle either. "You know what it did to me?"

Quin sighed. "Do I want to know?" he muttered, and Tulith's hand snapped forward to grab Quin's hair and wrench his head back. Quin bit back a curse.

"It told me to sit still while it proceeded to cutting the fingers off of my left hand," Tulith continued, lifting his other hand to wriggle the imaginary fingers, as if proving a point to Quin.

"You probably deserved it," he muttered. "What did you do to him before he cut your fingers off?"

"It's not a person," Tulith muttered, letting go of Quin's hair before stepping back. "It's a demon. So what; I might've tried to kill it beforehand, but it deserves it. It's a filthy, dangerous lork."

"I am literally sitting right here," Quin sighed. "Look, can we just call it a day? I could really use a nap. And you cannot kill me for something my other soul has done; if the Adranian Council is overlooking me, why aren't you?"

"Because if I find out what this trigger is," Tulith continued, pacing the floor again, "then I can stop that crazy lork before it decides to cut anyone else's fingers off. I'm not even sure you want to know how many people it's killed."

"You are right," Quin declared. "I do not want to know. You know why? Because I do not care. What it does is none of my business; there is a reason I do not have its memories. I am not supposed to know. So why do you not just let me go already? I am not hurting anyone."

"Not here, that's for sure," Tulith shot back with a scowl. "I will not let that yireli roam the streets ever again." He paused for a moment, thinking about his next words. "It's been forging letters, you know."

This time, Quin frowned. "Forging letters?" he repeated. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, you didn't know?" Tulith mused, triumph glittering in his eyes. "Well, let me tell you something about your little 'friend', Quinton. I don't think you know just how crazy it is."