Rise of The Martian Heir

Chapter 3: The Interrogation

Raven woke up to pain.

Not the sharp pain from the knife in his shoulder. A dull, deep ache all over, like he’d been hit by a truck. His mouth tasted like copper and old blood. His wrists were cuffed behind him to a metal chair. Cold.

He was in a small room. Grey walls. One metal table bolted to the floor. One bright light hanging from the ceiling, buzzing. No windows. A mirror on the wall — the kind you see in movies where people watch from the other side.

An interrogation room.

He tried to move. The cuffs bit into his skin. His green Melo uniform was gone. He wore a grey paper jumpsuit, like a prisoner. His arms throbbed where he’d been stabbed. He looked down. The wounds were bandaged, but blood had soaked through.

‘Where am I? What’s happening?’

He remembered the SWAT team. The lasers on his chest. The officer named Vex stabbing him and laughing.

He remembered the red exclamation mark floating above Vex’s head.

He looked around the room again, slowly. Was there one here too?

No. Just the buzzing light.

*THUD. THUD. THUD.*

Heavy boots in the hallway. Getting closer.

The door slammed open.

Officer Vex walked in. Same black armor, helmet off now. He was maybe thirty-five, short hair, scar on his chin. He was smiling. Not a nice smile.

“Hey, serial killer!” Vex shouted, and without stopping, he punched Raven in the face.

Raven’s head snapped back. The chair scraped on the floor. Blood filled his mouth from his lip splitting open.

“Shrak you!” Raven yelled without thinking. Anger flared up, hot and fast.

Vex laughed. He grabbed the chair and slammed Raven back down so all four legs hit the floor.

“Whoa, feisty,” Vex said, pulling out the other chair and sitting down across the metal table. He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Who did you kill yesterday?”

Raven stared at him, breathing hard. “What? I didn’t kill anyone. You’ve got the wrong person!”

Vex smiled wider. He slapped a thick folder onto the table. It hit with a bang.

He opened it and spun it around so Raven could see.

Photos. Crime scene photos.

The first one made Raven’s stomach turn. A man’s body on concrete, head cut clean off. Blood everywhere.

Raven knew that face. Jax. The guy who stabbed him in the alley two nights ago. The guy who called him craterborn dustlicker.

“That’s… that’s Jax,” Raven whispered. “He… he bullied me since the orphanage. He stabbed me the other night.”

Vex leaned back, looking pleased. “So you admit you hated him. Motive. Good. So you killed him out of hatred.”

“No!” Raven shouted. “I didn’t! He stabbed me! Look!” He tried to twist to show his stomach, but the cuffs held him. “Check my stomach! He cut me!”

Vex stood up, walked around the table. He grabbed the front of Raven’s paper jumpsuit and ripped it open.

He stared at Raven’s stomach. Smooth skin. No cut. No scar. Nothing.

Vex frowned. He poked Raven’s belly hard with his finger.

“There’s nothing here, dustlicker,” Vex said. “No wound. No scar.”

“But— but someone healed me! The woman! The night before last!” Raven was talking fast, panicking. “She put her hand on me and—”

Vex slapped him. Hard. The sound echoed in the small room. Raven’s ear rang.

“You think I’m stupid?” Vex yelled. “You’re poor. You live in Harp. You can’t afford healing gel. Only billionaires in the Heights can afford scar-less healing. Even I can’t afford it!”

He grabbed Raven’s bandaged shoulder and squeezed. Right on the knife wound.

Raven screamed. White-hot pain shot down his arm.

Vex let go, laughing.

He flipped to the next photo in the folder and pushed it toward Raven.

Raven wished he hadn’t looked.

It was a girl. Young. Blond hair tied back. Her chest… it was a mess. Blood everywhere.

It was his crush. The girl from Melo. The girl from the hallway who smiled at him yesterday.

“No,” Raven breathed. Tears filled his eyes. “No, no, no.”

Vex watched his face closely, like a cat watching a mouse. “Ah. You recognize her. You killed her too, didn’t you?”

“No!” Raven cried, tears spilling over. “I liked her! I just saw her yesterday! I never—”

“You liked her,” Vex cut in, his voice suddenly soft and creepy. “She had a husband, didn’t she? You killed her out of jealousy. That’s what the report says.”

Raven couldn’t speak. He just shook his head, sobbing. He stared at the photo of the girl he’d liked for three years, now dead on a slab.

The door opened again.

A female officer walked in. She was younger than Vex, hair in a tight bun, carrying a tablet and a scanner.

“Sir, let me scan his ID chip,” she said, ignoring Raven’s tears.

“Yeah, yeah, have fun,” Vex said, waving a hand. He sat back down, looking bored.

The female officer walked behind Raven. He felt a cold device press against the top of his skull, right where Garden Corp put ID chips in all orphans.

The scanner beeped.

“So,” she said, reading from her tablet. “Born November 10, 2009. Today is November 10, 2028. That makes you nineteen years old today. Correct?”

Raven sniffed, trying to stop crying. “Yes, ma’am.” He coughed, and blood spattered on the metal table from his split lip.

She kept reading. “Blond hair, blue eyes, height six feet. Orphan, Ward of Garden Corp Orphanage Net. Current employment: Melo Delivery, The Tipsy Comet Bar. Address: Harp Apartment 212-9.”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s correct,” Raven mumbled.

She looked at his bandaged arms. “Who gave you those wounds on your shoulder and arm?”

Raven looked up at her. She seemed normal. Maybe she would help. “The SWAT team. Him.” He nodded his head toward Vex. “I want to file a report. He stabbed me. Twice.”

Vex and the female officer looked at each other. Then they both burst out laughing. Loud, cruel laughter that filled the room.

Raven felt his hope die.

The female officer stopped laughing. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a phone. Not just any phone. It was the sleek black phone Sebastian had given him.

She held it up in front of Raven’s face.

“Where did you get this phone, you poor shrak?” she asked. “Did you steal it?”

Raven’s eyes widened. “No! It was given to me! By a butler!”

She didn’t believe him. She smashed the phone down on the metal table, right in front of him. *PANG!*

Then again. *PANG! PANG!*

The screen cracked.

“You poor dustlickers steal from the Heights and then you kill people,” she hissed. “You make me sick.”

Raven just stared at the broken phone. He didn’t have the energy to argue anymore. He looked away, toward the door, wishing someone would come save him.

*BAM!*

A huge noise from outside the room. Like an explosion, but muffled. Shouting. Then silence.

The lights in the hallway flickered.

Vex stood up fast, hand on his gun. “What the hell was that?”

The door to the interrogation room opened slowly.

The female officer tapped her smartwatch and the bright white light in the room changed to a soft, normal light.

A woman walked in.

Raven knew her instantly. White and blue corporate dress. Brown hair braided. Violet eyes.

Madam Rhea.

She walked past Vex like he wasn’t there. She walked past the female officer like she was furniture. She came straight to Raven.

The air in the room felt different. Calmer.

“So pitiful,” she whispered, so quiet only Raven could hear. She knelt beside his chair. “I just got to this world, into this body, yesterday. I will have you.”

Raven was confused and in pain. “But why?”

“Because this planet belongs to you,” she whispered in his ear, her warm breath on his skin. “You are the true heir to Mars’ throne.”

Raven blinked. “Huh?”

She cupped his face in her hands. Her hands were soft and warm. “But now I need you to become my son-in-law, so we can tie our fates together. Please, Raven. I beg you. Accept.”

Raven looked into her violet eyes. He saw the alley. He saw her healing him. He saw the SWAT team beating him. He saw the photos of Jax and the girl, dead.

He was tired of being beaten. Tired of being poor. Tired of being nobody.

He didn’t understand what she meant about thrones and planets. He just knew she was the only person who had ever been kind to him without wanting something first.

“I accept,” he said, his voice hoarse.

Madam Rhea smiled. A real, beautiful smile that made her whole face light up.

She stood up and turned to Vex. Her voice was no longer a whisper. It was cold as ice.

“Release him. Right now.”

Vex puffed up his chest. “But Madam Rhea! He’s a serial killer! He killed two people!”

The female officer stepped forward, her face pale. She held up her tablet. “Sir! I just got a new update from forensics! The serial killer is a different person! They caught him on CCTV in Sector 7 an hour ago! We… we have the wrong person!”

Vex’s mouth opened and closed like a fish.

“I am sorry, Madam,” Vex said quickly. “I will release him now.” He hurried behind Raven and unlocked the handcuffs.

Raven’s arms fell free. He tried to stand but his legs were weak and shaky from pain and blood loss.

“Will you apologize for what you did to me?” Raven asked, looking at both officers. His voice was weak but steady.

“We are truly sorry!” both officers said together, bowing their heads low. They looked scared.

“Raven, ignore them,” Madam Rhea said softly. She slipped her arm around his waist to hold him up. She was strong. She leaned in and kissed his bloody hand gently. “I promised I would take care of you.”

She helped him walk out of the interrogation room. The hallway outside was a mess. SWAT officers were lying unconscious on the floor everywhere. Raven didn’t ask what happened.

Sebastian was waiting by the elevator, standing perfectly straight in his butler suit.

“Madam. Young master,” he said with a bow.

“Take us home, Sebastian,” Madam Rhea said. “And have someone collect all of Young Master Raven’s belongings from Harp Apartment. He will not be returning there.”

Raven leaned heavily on her as they walked. He looked up at her.

‘I’m the true heir of Mars?’ he thought, his mind spinning. It sounded crazy.

But as they stepped into the elevator, and the doors closed, he looked down and saw it.

Floating just above Madam Rhea’s head, clear as day, was a small, glowing golden exclamation mark.

It pulsed softly, warm and bright.

It was nothing like the angry red ones he’d seen before.