Charlotte Owens twisted in her seat, clasping and unclasping her hands on the metal table in front of her. "I have told you a dozen times already," she growled through gritted teeth.
"Well, I would love for you to tell me again," Maxwell Smith smirked at her.
Charlotte sighed and leaned back in her chair, running her tongue over her teeth. "You know what, I don't really feel like explaining it to you again," she sighed, scowling at him. "Perhaps when you decide you are ready to listen to me..."
"Ah Miss Owens, you know that won't work with me. I decide when we are done here. You see we need to find out everything we can about your kind," he exhaled, his smile unfaltering.
Charlotte cast a bored expression at Maxwell, ignoring the sweat patches that stained his shirt, the slick sheen of perspiration that speckled his forehead, even the five o'clock shadow that had started to appear over his jaw and cheeks, a hazy blur of grey and black marring his pock-marked skin.
Maxwell Smith was in his early sixties, and wore an irritating smug smile at most times. It was as if he was trying to disguise his worn-out, stressed appearance, by proving himself to be an irritating, condescending ass.
Yet Charlotte could easily see past this show, to the high-strung agent they had been sent to interrogate them all. She had searched his mind early on in their days in the compound, pulling out his fears and dissecting them, just to pass some of the time she had had to spend with him cooped up in the tiny interrogation room.
He wasn't that bad really. None of them were, even if she was only comparing them to Kingston, but their rescuers wanted to know everything. And Charlotte had told them everything – everything she knew, but still they wanted more. They always wanted more.
"Do you think they could turn down the heating?" she asked after a moment, resting her chin in her hand as she leaned against the table.
"Getting a little uncomfortable are we?" he asked, his grin stretching.
Charlotte chuckled and rolled her eyes. "It's not for me, Maxie," she winked. "If you sweat anymore through that shirt it's going to turn see-through, and that is not something any of us want to see".
Maxwell's grin faltered and he stood up straighter, his expression growing darker. "Miss Owens, could you drop the attitude? We are just trying to understand your kind a little bit better".
Charlotte leaned forward and heaved a heavy sigh. "Ok, start with not referring to us as your kind. We are human – despite what you and your facility thinks. We are only like this because you ultimately failed to protect us in the beginning. So it would be great if you could stop treating us like we are either contagious, disease-ridden freaks or that we are some alien lifeform". Charlotte's tone was immeasurably calm, patronising at best.
"Okay, Miss Owens," Maxwell sighed, sitting down in the seat opposite. He exhaled slowly, forcing his shoulders down. Charlotte half-smiled, wondering if he was conscious of the little idiosyncrasies that revealed his thoughts to her. "I am truly sorry if I have offended you in any way by my choice of words, and I would like to continue to work with you towards better understanding..." he frowned trying to choose his words carefully.
"Us monsters?" she simpered.
"You are impossible," he snapped through gritted teeth, running his hands over his meaty face.
"As I have said, I have already told you exactly what I know about life on the island. I am sorry but Elmhirst did not make me privy to the techniques he used to alter us," she said, speaking each word slowly and clearly as if he was hard of hearing. "It may surprise you, but I wasn't his favourite student".
YOU ARE READING
Feared
Science Fiction'Play the game, she thought, remembering the only three words that had helped her to survive at Kingston. Only back then she had known the game, she had known what they wanted her to be, what they had wanted her to do - this man was different. She d...
