In my Blood

CHAPTER 27 - Interrogation

After Newt has picked Thomas up from the floor, we make our way to the stairs, where Frypan and Aris are about to go up with Brenda. 

"Guys!" Fry says with relief. "Man, I thought we'd never see you again. What happened to him?"

"Who, Thomas?" Brenda slurs. She lets out a cackling, drunken laugh. "Couldn't handle the party."

"Brenda, what did you drink?" I ask, walking towards her and grabbing a hold of her arms so she doesn't fall. 

"Just some weird green juice," she giggles. As quickly as she began laughing earlier, her mood changes to a cold seriousness. "I'm going to die." 

I look to the others in alarm. Aris shakes his head, as if trying to piece it all together. "She's probably just drunk, she doesn't know what she's talking about," he concludes. "We should go upstairs... Jorge will be waiting."

So we all move up the stairs, trying to stop Brenda from stumbling downwards while carrying Thomas at the same time. When we reach the third floor, Newt and Minho are both out of breath from carrying Thomas, and Brenda is muttering to herself in such a harrowing way that it makes me shiver. 

The music from downstairs is a dull, humming vibration, just quiet enough to hear a series of loud, agonised groans coming from a room down the hall. Cautiously, I walk towards the room, and peer around the door frame. 

Jorge towers over a man in a red velvet waistcoat, crumpled on the ground with blood running down the side of his face. 

"You tell me what you know!" Jorge screams. He raises his fist into the air and smashes it down onto the man's face, blood spraying onto the carpet. 

"Jorge!" I call out, rushing into the room. "What are you doing?!"

Jorge's head perks up. "Brenda? Where is she?" he asks urgently.

Brenda stumbles into the room, her eyelids drooping ever so slightly and expression vague. Jorge pulls her into a tight hug, but she just ends up collapsing into his chest. He scoops her up and puts her down on a sofa, seemingly calm, until he faces me and I see his worried expression.

"What happened to her? Did she drink anything?" he asks quickly.

"W-Well, yeah, she said she drank some green liquid," I reply. "Why, what is it?" 

Jorge lets out a sigh of relief. "Nothing we need to worry about. If it were the white liquid I'd be worried. And the boy, Thomas, did he drink it too?"

As if on cue, the boys carry Thomas through into the room. "Ah," Jorge says. "Just... lay him down on a sofa. I have some business I need to attend to with our little friend over here." He strides towards the man in the waistcoat again, who crouches limply on the floor. Jorge kicks him down again, the man letting out a cry. I turn away, biting my bottom lip anxiously as I hear the man groan. I suddenly feel very exposed and vulnerable in my tiny skirt and strappy red top, and decide to go change. 

***

One very long hour passes of Jorge's interrogation, but nothing. No new information, or people. Minho gets in a few punches too, but no one else wants anything to do with it. 

I sit at the back corner of the room, beside a window. I look out across the city, its looming skyscrapers shining in the light, and beyond that, an ocean of golden sand dunes. It could almost be beautiful. Almost. 

I flinch when I hear another punch. The man – Marcus – has been tied up in a chair, and now sits upright, with the blood dripping down onto his lap from his face. Jorge hits again. I grit my teeth together and force myself to look away again, to look at the sandy city beneath me.