Interrogation

Tom and Derek were led to a room near the back of the building that was similar to the one they had spoken to Phil in during their prior interrogation. TJ had sent security to pick up Camila, and she was sitting in a chair across a table from them with her arms folded over her chest, clearly in a sour mood.

"You guys mind telling me what the hell is going on?" Camila spat at them as soon as the door opened.

Derek dismissed the two large security guards standing inside the room and closed the door behind them.

"Sure thing, Camila. It's about murder." Derek said simply as he sat in a chair across the table from her, folding one leg over the other and his arms over his own chest.

Camila's eyes went wide at the pronouncement.

"What?! What do you mean, murder? I didn't kill anyone. I don't even kill monsters." She protested.

"Well, the dead body says otherwise," Tom replied.

"What do you mean?" Camila asked, looking terrified.

"We mean that in a world filled with magic and skills, that even if we can't use a lot of our old tools of the trade to figure out who murdered someone, we can actually just ask them who did it," Derek said, picking at some dirt under his fingernails as though he didn't have a care in the world.

"That's a crock of shit," Camila said. "No one can ask a dead person anything."

"You must not be a tabletop game player, Camila. Because there is a spell that lets us do just that." Derek replied, now looking over his nails at her.

"You're lying," Camila said, appearing to need to convince herself more than Tom and Derek.

"Why would we do that?" Tom asked.

"A confession seems like a pretty good reason," Camila replied, leaning back in her chair, her arrogance beginning to take over her earlier panic.

"You know, I was hoping you would say that," Derek smiled as he walked over to the door and opened it. "Come on in."

As he moved aside to allow entry into the room, Bohdan stepped through, walking backward, guiding a gurney with a body on it. Rebecca pushed the other end into the room and then stood watch as Derek closed the door.

"What the hell is this?" Camila asked, now looking disturbed and worried at the same time.

"This? Oh, it's some poor unnamed fool that we found out scavenging. No idea who he was." Derek looked at the corpse that seemed to have been dried out, and bites had been taken out of parts of its body. "We found him in an abandoned building nearby under a pile of rubble. We've been removing those bodies to prevent disease from sneaking up on us from bloated and rotting bodies. I asked Rebecca and Bohdan to save this one for us."

Camila looked on in horror at the body as Derek gestured for Bohdan to begin. Holding his hands out over the body as he had done before, the green glow shot into the corpse, and it began to move before it hissed a raspy breath as well. Sitting up on the gurney, it turned its head slowly, dried dead skin cracking as it did, and looked at Bohdan.

"What in the ass is happening?!" Camila shouted as she jumped out of her chair and moved to the back wall to be as far away from the body as possible.

"I'm a dead body; what the hell do I look like?" The body spoke in a raspy old voice that sounded as though someone hadn't had a drink in days.

"Holy shit, it talks!" Camila exclaimed.

"It does, indeed," Derek confirmed. "And we did this to Jared's body. We asked him who killed him, and he directed us to you, Camila."

At this point, Camila was practically shaking with fear and unease as she began to sink against the back wall, unable to get as far away as she would like.

"No, no, no, no, no...." Camila kept repeating as she stared in shock, horror, and denial at the body that continued to stare at her with its empty sockets, its eyes having shriveled and fallen out or been eaten months ago.

"Yes, yes, yes! This takes the middleman out of needing to do the detective work now, and we can get the word directly from the source. Hopefully, this will discourage future murders in the guild." Derek said with a sadistic smile on his face at the thought he had her dead to rights. "How did you die?"

"I was crushed under some rubble when something struck the building I was hiding in," The body replied.

"And finally, what would you have us do with you now that we found you?" Derek asked the final question, still not taking his eyes off Camila, who was now sitting on the floor, almost in tears.

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"I don't give a fuck, I'm dead, asshole," The corpse replied before the magic left the body and it laid back down, still again.

"Cheerful fellow," Bohdan commented.

"Thanks for your help, Bohdan. You and Rebecca can take him back now." Derek said, shaking Bohdan's hand before they left the room.

"What we want to know, Camila, is why?" Tom asked.

Camila didn't respond at first. the intensity of the moment seemed to have rendered her completely unable to process what was happening. She slowly looked over at Tom, tears just beginning to fall from her eyes.

"He wouldn't even notice me. It was all about Terri," Camila began slowly. "Jared and I had been friends since high school. He was one of the popular kids, and I wasn't. I wasn't good at sports or talented academically, but he noticed me anyway. We hung out with the others and even went to the same college. Then the apocalypse came, and his current girlfriend was killed.

I thought I'd have a chance then. We came here together with a small group of friends. He should have noticed me. I was always so nice to him. I complimented his clothes, mentioned his haircuts, and even got him his favorite snacks from time to time. But when we got here, he only had eyes for Terri. She wasn't even part of our group."

"So you thought you'd kill him?" Tom asked.

"I gave him a chance. I practically threw myself at him. But I'm not as pretty as that whore, Terri. Even when we were hanging out, it was 'Terri this', or 'Terri that'. Stupid Bimbo just had to bat her lashes at him and show a little cleavage, and he was all over her. She didn't even know him." Camila continued, anger in her voice as tears of frustration and rage continued to fall from her eyes.

"And if you couldn't have him, no one could," Derek sighed.

"I figured, with the apocalypse, no one would notice or think he went missing in the city. People die every day. That's what they used to say. But not like after the System came here. They die in droves now. Who could tell how it happened?" Camila gave a half-hearted smile at her belief that she could get away with it.

"But you butchered him. Cut him into pieces and tried to get rid of the evidence. Why?" Tom asked.

"It's still murder, you twat. I didn't want anyone to find out. Figured they would just burn it like they do with the trash. But I let him know what he had done first." Camila spoke with vehemence now. "He needed to know how I felt. He played with my emotions. My heart belonged to him, and he just tossed it aside. So, I did the same with his body."

"That's cold," Tom replied.

"It's no less than he did to me. He deserved what he got." Camila snapped at him.

"Hell hath no fury, I guess," Derek said offhandedly.

"Screw you. Not like you'd understand." Camila sneered at Derek in hatred.

"Actually, there's a reason I'm in my thirties and not tied down yet," Derek said before he could catch himself.

"Really?" Tom asked.

"Yeah, I don't like to talk about it, though. But seeing as we're here, there was this woman. We met in the army, deployed, and stationed in the same areas overseas. I fell hard. When I got out, she left as well, even moving down to Texas. I thought she saw me the same way. Turns out, she had eyes for another man. She moved here because it happened that he was from Irving.

I didn't know any of this, though. I showed up at the airport to surprise her. She never saw me. Ran right into the other guy's arms off the plane and kissed him. I was crushed. I had imagined us together, making a life, a house, with kids and a dog. But she didn't see me the same way." Derek admitted.

"What did you do?" Camila asked.

"I moved on. I know that sounds like some stupid answer, and it wasn't easy. I still think about her, and my heart aches when I think about what I thought we could have together. But I didn't put myself in a position where I would see or talk to her. If it was going to continue to be that painful, I had to cut off the relationship. Otherwise, I would have obsessed over it, too." Derek explained. "I could have followed up on them. Hell, I don't even know if they were still together. But to make sure I didn't do anything stupid, I stayed away. Forgot the number, blocked her on social media, and just disappeared from her life."

"You couldn't just be friends?" Camila asked, wiping away tears.

"Not with the kind of feelings I had. A crush is one thing. You feel the attraction and can still be friends. But I was in love. If I had stuck around, I would have just been torturing myself with the hope she would one day feel the same." Derek replied, now not looking at her as he remembered.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do. I was just so filled with emotion that I lost control. I wish I could take it back." Camila said.

"Unfortunately, what's done is done. All we can do now is move forward. We will have to hold you here until we can set up a trial," Derek said, standing from the chair he had sat in to face Camila. "It won't be as fast as it used to be because we are trying to get the system in place to work for everyone. But you'll be safe and cared for in the meantime."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Camila replied, her eyes glazing over as she withdrew into herself.

Tom and Derek left the room and had the guards return to the room before closing the door.

"Poor thing. I feel bad for her." Tom said.

"Yeah, but she broke a cardinal rule. We can't just let her skate. But I don't think she deserves to be killed, either. I mean, we could. And we'd be justified, but I think the guild would frown on that. There's still a pretty big reliance on the way things used to work and a desire to undo everything that's happened." Derek said, thinking about all the possibilities.

"You're right. It just sucks," Tom said.

"We have to work on doing what's right by everyone. Come on, let's go see what Brian is up to with the process and see about having her moved to the jail."