The Half-Giant's Guide to Seeing the Future

The Day I Watched An Interrogation

Alana met us herself at the ranch to bring Gayle to the compound. She and Emma locked Gayle up in a cell and then left her there to wake up alone and in the dark. From what I could gather, the plan was to turn on a single bulb when she woke up and let her stew alone for a few hours.

Ezra and Ashton were posted as guards outside the cell in the meantime. Alana wasn't taking any chances. She ordered Tres, Emma, and me to bed to rest, and I found my way to Moreno's room again.

He sat on his bed, hugging a pink pillow that I recognized from his sister's room to his chest. I slipped into the bed beside him and wrapped an arm around his tense body. He collapsed against me and buried his face in my shoulder. I fell asleep enveloped in his warm and spicy scent, which seemed to drive away all of my prophetic dreams.

I woke later with him shaking me lightly. He pressed a chaste kiss to my forehead as my eyes fluttered open. I smiled up at his face and pushed a strand of his long hair behind his ear.

"What did you see?" The words were tender coming from him.

"Nothing," I said.

"Like the calm before a storm," he sat up and dragged me with him. "I know I've been acting irrational lately, Terri, and I'm sorry for that."

"I'm sorry too," I said. "It feels like this is all my fault."

He bit his lip. "It's not, and I'm sorry if anyone has made you feel that way. It's Gayle's fault. Ashton started the interrogation, and she wants us in the observation room. That's why I woke you."

"They're going to let you watch?" I was surprised.

"Well, I think Alana figured I was going to want to see it, so I think her plan is to lock the door to the observation room," he said. "You should shower and get ready. We have about twenty minutes before Ashton begins asking questions."

I stole back to my room to wash up and change clothes. Today, I put on halfant gear, black and hard. It seemed fitting because it was a part of me now. I should look like the others even if I wasn't a soldier. Once I had all the armored clothing fitted to my body, I pulled my hair back with an elastic. I looked ready to jump into action.

It brought a smile to my face. I found Moreno waiting outside my room. He seemed to drink in my appearance with his eyes. The gear was form-fitting and certainly showed off my curves more than my regular wardrobe. I put my hand on my hip and posed like a model, and it almost made him smile.

Almost.

Moreno led me down to the cells. This time, though, he pushed open another door I hadn't seen before that looked like a break room. A couch sat in front of a big monitor. Alana was sitting on the couch with her feet propped up on a coffee table. A spread of snacks lay in front of her.

"Sit down," Alana said. "Ashton is about to make herself useful, and then she'll be on her merry way."

Moreno and I sat down beside her on the couch. The screen showed a feed of Gayle looking around an empty cell with straw on the floor, like a medieval dungeon. It was nothing like the cell that Moreno was locked in yesterday. She was chained to the floor by an ankle so she could walk around, but she simply sat on the floor.

"Why do you hate Ashton so much?" I asked.

"Because she thinks she's better than we are," Moreno said. "And we have the scores to prove she's not. Not to mention, she's never forgiven us for wiping the floor with her in sparring training. We knocked her down to the fourth position, and she's held it against us ever since."

"She actively roots for us to fail, so why should we like her?" Alana said. "At least Ezra knows when to keep his trap closed."

Sound crackled through unseen speakers at the door to Gayle's cell opened on the screen. Ashton walked into the room with all the confidence of the cockiest woman on the planet. She smiled at the look of shock on Gayle's face when she realized that Alana wouldn't be running this interrogation.