“Oh, you're serious. Right. So, you're some kind of spook. You mind telling me why you're interested in me and my friend?”
“Let's not waste time with silly questions, Mr. Gabris. You know why we took you and your friend, as you call him. Two agents spoke to you about him, and you did an excellent job at convincing one of them that you lost the man near Portland. They spent a lot of time searching Portland for him before Agent Watkins decided they needed to return to Salem and ask you a few more questions. But you weren't there. So, they investigated and discovered that you own two properties.”
Fuck. I had wasted time that I could have used hiding Kaspian somewhere truly safe.
“Ma'am?” Another armed man came in with a chair and set it beside the bed.
“Thank you.” Ms. Shin sat down and crossed her legs. “We brought you in to answer more questions, Mr. Gabris. But then we conducted a physical exam and discovered a few interesting things about you.”
“About me?” I scowled at her. “From a physical exam? Is that the blood work Watkins was talking about?”
“That and other tests.”
“What the fuck could you have possibly found in my blood?” I tried to lift my hands but only got them an inch up before the straps stopped me. “Do I have high cholesterol or something?”
Ms. Shin peered at me.
I stared back at her.
A minute passed.
Two.
I didn't break.
She lifted her chin.
I lowered mine.
At last, she said, “I see. You really don't know.”
“About what?” I snarled, my calm fraying. I didn't need to be calm anymore. This wasn't a psychiatric institution.
“I have a few theories about how this happened, but now, I'm leaning toward the first.”
“What happened? What's wrong with me?”
“I believe your interaction with the alien has changed you. It has changed you on a molecular level.”
“My interaction with the what?” I lifted my brows at her.
“We know what he is, Mr. Gabris. Please, don't make me go into all the details about this being and his arrival on our planet. We know. And now you know that we know. All right? Let's move on.”
“Fine.” I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. What were they doing to Kaspian? Fuck. Was he already dead? Were they dissecting his body? No. I couldn't think like that. Mainly because that thought made me so ill that I wouldn't be able to function. I'd just bend over, throw up, and sob. I had to hold it together. So, I tried to help Kas in the only way I could think of. “But he's not a threat to anyone. He helped us. And yes, technically, he's an alien, but not of the flying saucer variety.”
She leaned in. “Good. Thank you for being honest at last. Go on. What variety is he?”
I stared at her, weighing my words. Would it help or hurt Kaspian if I told the truth? What difference would it make? I knew one thing I wasn't going to tell her—what he could transform into. So, what was I willing to share?
“Mr. Gabris, we don't want to hurt our visitor. We want to learn from him. What he did with that fire . . . imagine if he could teach us how to do it? Your job would be so much easier.”
“Yeah, but he can't teach it. It isn't technology. It's magic.”
“Magic,” she said the word as if she didn't understand it.
“I know. It's hard to wrap your head around. The guy comes from a world where humans are the only race without magic. Everyone else has it. He has Fire Magic.”
“Fire Magic? So, he can burn things?”
