Chapter 86: Chapter 86

Avril had totally lost track of time in the white walled room with harsh florescent lights. Her eyes dulled from crying too much and for lack of sleep. Glancing down at her hands, they were stained with dry blood and handcuffed to the large concrete table in the room.

She gulped down dryly, and looked around the room once more for any possible entrance or exit. The walls and ceiling were pure white, smooth and straight with no visible space of a door, window, or outlet. Where had they led her through to abandon her in that cell then? Was it even a cell? Or a room there were going to leave her to starve to death?

She adjusted her bottom on the hard and cold concrete bench she was sitting on and laid her head on the platform in front of her.

“Dakar,” she muttered and swallowed the lump in her throat. She had cried his name more than a hundred times since she woke up handcuffed to that platform. But he didn't come, no one came. She didn't even know how she got there and only remembered how guards pinned her to the floor beside Dakar's motionless body.

“He's not dead. Dakar won't die,” she assured herself again and lifted her bloodstained hands away from her sight, to the top of her head. Time passed again, and she dozed off numerously only to jerk back away every single time after hearing the sizzling sound of silver in Dakar's flesh.

Finally and mercifully, a door opened in the white wall just in front of her. A man with a white dress shirt and a black fitted tie walks in. He looked young, a few years younger than Dakar. Avril could see lines had formed on his forehead probably from frowning too much, as there was no trace of a smile on his face as he entered the room. The door shut smoothly behind him without a noise, blending back into the wall that Avril immediately forgot where it had opened from. Well, her eyes were very heavy and blurry.

“Good afternoon, Ms...?” he asked with a raised brow at her. He was standing a few feet from the concrete platform with his hands in his pocket. Avril understood his question. He wanted to know her name.

“Fiorella,” she answered with a hoarse voice.

“Good afternoon, Fiorella,” he greeted well this time and Avril nodded. Her heart skipped a beat to find out she had been in that room throughout the night, through the morning and now it was afternoon of the next day since the incident.

“My name is Colonel Hansel. And I'll be in charge of your interrogation until you're sentenced or found innocent.” He shrugged that last part and stared into her eyes. Avril gulped then nodded, tears trying to escape her eyes but she convinced herself that she was strong. Crying would do her no good.

“May I know why you decided it was worth it to murder our prince?” he began while still standing in that position, a few feet from both the concrete platform and the hidden door.

“I didn't...I never...I can never...” she stuttered and almost broke down again.

Colonel Hansel blew off an imaginary speck of dust from the top of his right shoulder.

“Don't make me bored. You're supposed to cooperate so we get this over with soon.”

Avril stared him in the eye and huffed under her breath. His dark brown eyes were cold, empty, emotionless and static. She had seen such eyes in Tijuana before. The men who had nothing to lose, but didn't care if they rid you of the one thing you don't want to lose.

“I didn't try or even murder the prince,” she spoke up with a bolder voice.

“All evidence points against you. You were seen stabbing him in the chest with a silver knife,” Colonel Hansel said and shrugged casually like it was nothing.

“I never stabbed him with any knife, talk more of a sil...ver knife. A silver knife?” her eyes bulged and she sat frozen in her seat.

“Who are you working for? And how many allies do you have here?” Hansel asked again, obviously looking bored. It seemed he didn't want to do this particular job but was forced to.

“Is the prince...is he dead?” Avril ignored his question and asked. Hansel cocked his head to the right and stared at Avril with mean eyes.

“You left a silver knife in his chest, what do you expect him to be doing? Cooking like he used to?”

Avril shook her head as she felt her breathing rise.

“No, it can't be. Dakar can't die like that. He's strong. He can't die like that because of me,” she blurted while grabbing her hair with her handcuffed hands.

Hansel smiled and moved closer to her. He placed his hands widely on the cold concrete table and leaned over to Avril's side.

“So truly you tried killed him yet expected he wouldn't die because of you?”

“I swear I didn't try to. Kill. Prince. Dakar. It was an accident. I returned home from where he took me to work and wanted showing him the knife I was gifted. When he...,” she trailed off.

“When he what?” Hansel questioned with a frown. Avril heaved a deep breath and gulped down. How was she going to explain that Dojo took over him and he saved her by stabbing himself instead. The sharp pain of the dagger piercing her neck coursed through her again, and she inadvertently lifted her hands to that spot. It was covered up with dried blood and still hurt a lot. Hansel followed her hands and saw the injury.

“How did you get that?” he questioned with his harsh eyes back on hers.

“From that same silver knife,” she answered.

“You caught yourself first? Isn't that a Virgo Vampire ritual? Your blood before your prey's blood, isn't it?”

For the first time since Avril found herself in that room, a terrible rage overshadowed the fear and worry she had been soaked in. She glared at Hansel, a dark ugly glare that communicated all the rage she had endured right from the time she was separated from Dakar on the island. Hansel watched the girl who had gone still and was glaring silver daggers at him. If eyes were drugs, he'd be long overdosed already.

He cleared his throat and stood upright, pocketing his hands again. His black shiny hair gleamed under the light that was directly overhead the concrete platform.

“How did you get the injury, Fiorella?”

“Prince Dakar was going to kill me,” she answered. Hansel raised a brow.

“He was different when he came home. His eyes were red and he...it was like he was hypnotized when he snatched the dagger from me and almost slit my throat with it. But suddenly, he turned against himself and drove it into his chest instead.”

Hansel stood still for a second, then he withdrew his hands from his pocket and began to clap.

“Bravo, perfect story. So perfect with nothing to disbelieve. Wow.”

“I'm not lying!”

“Yes, sure. A sane wolf would suddenly not be himself, have red eyes like a vampire, try to kill you but only give you a small cut, then finally kill himself.”

Avril didn't say anything anymore. It was obvious this case was not one that they wanted her to win. If she was to come out of this, she needed proof. But if Dakar was truly...then she'd rather they killed her too.

“Now tell me how you got a silver dagger all of a sudden.”

Avril looked away from him and settled her gaze on the white wall by her right. It hurt her eyes from how white and bright it was, but she stared at it anyway. Hansel kept asking questions that were stupid enough to make her block his entire voice from her ears. When he saw she had drifted away and would not answer anything anymore, he left. And Avril did not even know when he did. But she regained her self from delusions and stared at a piece of paper in front of her. She picked it up and it read, ‘I know the people to hurt that would make you speak.’