Whoops! Had a little chapter mishap for a second. Here's the REAL update. Oh, and there are some suggestive themes ahead. You have been warned.

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Chapter 12:

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Pogue glared at the man before him, having not answered a single question of his. His pudgy, gray-haired interrogator named Howard was starting to become a little peeved by his silence.

"What's your relationship with these other boys?" Howard asked, trying to keep his calm.

Pogue only stared back with a closed mouth.

"Do you know anything about these explosions?" he tried again.

No answer.

"How much do you remember of the party at the lake house last night?"

Nothing.

"You had better start talking, boy. Cat got your tongue?"

Pogue blinked once, and his mouth remained closed. This was really starting upset Howard, who grew a bit red in the face with his anger.

"I said, speak up!" he commanded with a raised voice.

Pogue began to stare at the ceiling with great interest.

"I said, SAY SOMETHING, BOY!" he shouted, spitting in his fury.

Pogue disgustedly raised his hand to his cheek, wiping the foreign saliva off his face with his two forefingers.

"Can I go to the bathroom?" he said at last.

Howard yelled in frustration, threw all his papers into the air and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind himself sourly.

Pogue smirked. Guess that was the end of his interrogation.

-

Caleb's interrogator was a woman named Caroline, a pushy, tight-lipped blond in her mid-thirties, and seemingly very passionate about her work. She carried around fresh files on all of them in her hands, and flipped casually through the pages as she questioned him, trying to act as if she didn't really care, though the intensity behind her voice told otherwise.

"Do you know why you are here, Mr. Danvers?"

Caleb sat right in his chair, slouching slightly, and didn't answer her.

"You and your friends…" she went on. "These 'Sons of Ipswich'… have been mysteriously linked to every strange event that goes on around that town. There have even been reports of some things too mysterious to explain away. Do you have anything to say to this?"

Caleb remained stoic.

"No, ma'am."

"You do understand that lying only works against you, right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She frowned, but let it go, and began to scan through the papers in her files for her next question.

"Don't I get a lawyer?" Caleb said with a look of concern.

"I think your friend has already discovered that Constitutional rights do not stand here," she replied.

"Right…" Caleb agreed with an understanding nod.

"You've been found out, Mr. Danvers," Caroline assured him. "It'd be best if you just explain everything to us so we can better understand the situation."

"Well, you seem like you have everything figured," Caleb said mockingly. "Who am I to rain on your parade?"

"Alright…" she said, going to a box that sat in the corner. She pulled out a book. A book that looked very familiar. Caleb tried his best to contain his surprise as he gazed upon the gold lettering across the front of the ancient tome, boasting the title "the Book of Damnation". He cast his eyes away from its sight.

"Do you recognize this book, Mr. Danvers?" she asked, slamming the thick, heavy book onto the table.

"No, ma'am," Caleb lied coolly.

"It was found in an underground meeting place. One that holds stone chairs, bearing the names of you and each of your friends on the seats around a pentagram table. Can you explain how that could be?"

Caleb blinked twice as he stared blankly at the woman, and kept his mouth closed. This was getting worse by the minute.

"Are you and your fellow 'Sons of Ipswich' familiar with the practice of sorcery and witchcraft, Mr. Danvers?"

Again, Caleb kept his silence.

She began to slap the files in her hands onto the table, one by one as she spoke.

"There have been reports of abnormal physical feats, levitating objects, flying cars, darkened iris's… A girl gets high like she's on a date-rape pill with no traces of drugs in her system… Explosions that come from a boy's head? Can you explain that for me?"

Caleb hesitated, impressed at how much this woman knew. There wasn't much left that she didn't seem aware of, and that disturbed him.

"No, ma'am," he said slowly and clearly.

-

Tyler opened his eyes to a room of white, and wondered if he had died and crossed over into the afterlife. Could this be heaven? If it was, it sure smelled funny…

As his eyes began to focus, he soon found this was not heaven at all, but rather very close to the opposite. He was lying on a white stretcher in a large white room, as the assorted nurses strapped him down with leather bindings. Doctors were bustling all around preparing for unknown tasks.

He even saw a clear window, and on the side stood important various people, some of which he recognized.

"Oh, shit," he said aloud. "Is that the president?"

"Sure is," said one of the nurses with a smile that almost seemed too sweet to be real.

"Where am I?" Tyler demanded.

"Don't be afraid," another nurse explained with an equally fake smile as she wiped the side of his shoulder with a small wet cloth. "We're just going to run some tests on you."

"Tests?" Tyler repeated with intense concern. "What kind of tests?"

His mouth abruptly closed as she pulled out a very long needle and squirted out a bit of its contents in front of him. Once satisfied it worked, she proceeded to jab it in his arm, making him call out in pain.

"Relax," she commanded. "It'll all be over soon…"

-

All three of the other Ipswich boys were escorted back to their cells at the same time, a similar look of distress reflected on all of their faces. No one spoke for a few minutes, as they headed back to their original places: Pogue leaning in the dark corner, Caleb sitting on the cot, and Reid pacing by the bars.

"So?" Pogue asked first. "How'd yours go?"

Caleb was the first to open his mouth.

"Well, they--" he started, but Reid interrupted him quickly.

"--Someone got Elle," he practically yelled. He seemed quite flustered by all of this new information, and was pacing extra fast and with longer steps. Caleb and Pogue looked up at Reid with confusion and alarm.

"What do you mean they got her?" Caleb asked patiently.

"Are you DEAF?" Reid shouted with anger. "Someone ATTACKED her and they think it was ME!"

"Reid, calm down," Pogue coaxed his friend, who put a comforting hand on his shoulder but was immediately pushed away.

"I thought you got to Aaron and his boys before they could do anything?" Caleb said with wonder.

"That's exactly the point," Reid snapped, stopping to give Caleb a harsh look. "But they're saying someone got to Elle before Aaron and his boys… and they Used in order to do it. It's why they're blaming me. They took a freakin' DNA sample, Caleb!"

"Calm down!" Caleb commanded. "That's a good thing… It'll prove you're innocent. Give it time."

"We don't have that kind of time," Reid retorted. "I'm Ascending in four days, Caleb. Elle could be dead by then—or whoever this horny bastard is could be coming back for more!"

Pogue frowned in troubled suspicion, and looked to Caleb.

"You don't think Tyler would do something like that, do you?"

Caleb rubbed his hands over his face in frustration and sighed very heavily.

"You and I both know Tyler couldn't, even if he wanted to," he said in defeat. "He doesn't have the amount of Power for that kind of mind control. Unless it was consensual… but knowing Ty, I highly doubt that he would go that far that fast."

This made Reid chuckle through his anger.

"Tyler couldn't find his way into a girl's pants with directions and a map."

Pogue snickered at this, but Caleb wasn't amused.

"It has to be Chase," Caleb admitted at last. "He's the only one capable, and can Use like that. Tyler mentioned that Elle lived with only her father. Chase may have even gone so far as to make Mr. Bishop's mother sick so that her father would leave town and Chase could get Elle alone."

Pogue shook his head in disbelief, growing serious at the mention of the dreaded name of the banished Ipswich brother.

"That's a lot of trouble for one little girl," Pogue argued. "Even if it had been Chase… and he was back from the dead… why would he do that to Smelly Ellie, of all girls?"

"Something shifty is going on," Reid stated, his shoulders tensing in anger. "And I don't like it."

"What if he goes after Kate next, like he did last time?" Pogue told Caleb with quickly increasing concern. "What if it's Sarah? I, for one, am not going to just sit around and wait for that to happen…"

Pogue then went to the bars and clenched the door with his hands, preparing to Use to open the lock. Caleb, who knew what was coming next, rose quickly to his feet in preparation to stop him.

"Pogue," Caleb warned. "Don't… not here…"

Suddenly Pogue stopped, his shoulders falling, and Caleb was surprised to the fact that Pogue appeared to have obeyed him so quickly. That assumption was quickly taken away though, when Pogue turned back around to them very slowly, in his eyes a look of intense fear. The other two seemed at a loss for words, their brows furrowing in alarm at Pogue's sudden panic.

"Guys…" Pogue said fearfully. "Why can't I Use?"

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New chapter very soon. Please review.
Signed,
--RedRogue