I didn’t realize that Alexis stopped until I looked up and saw his waiting face. Did he ask me a question? I quickly muttered something about understanding what he had said, it seemed like the most logical thing to be waiting on. I must have been right because, after another minute of silence, he started up again. The man really knew how to wield his silences to full effect.
"Now as I've implied only the fifth card is surrounded in mystery. There are some who will swear up and down it was some sort of queen, while others claim it was the nine of diamonds. But then again there are those who are convinced, or maybe they would just rather believe, that the third card was another ace. Now it just so happens that aces over eights is the most widely known version of the hand and, due to the strength of that hand that is most likely scenario. But either way, it’s considered an extremely unlucky hand to have.”
The nine of diamonds, was Alexis being serious with me? There was no way he could have known what my starting hand had been. But then... Is this all just some strange and bizarre coincidence? When my mind finally pulled together all of the stray thoughts into one intelligible, or mostly intelligible pot, laughter was on the verge bursting out of me like water from a dam. I fought to control myself as I had zero reason to laugh. It took me awhile, but I was eventually able to diffuse the impending laughter, which is of course when I chose to open my mouth. “Well then I guess it was quite the apt hand to make for myself.” And with the one quip the wall I had built around the laughter crumbled and my laughter filled the hallway.
There was no possible way Alexis could have known why I was laughing, not when the reason eluded me. But I guess my laughter was just so infectious that he was compelled to partake in the forced merriment. But since he was able to reign it in before I could I was forced to listen to more of his words. “Alright, you've had your laugh, now tell me what happened after you stole the hand.”
The command chilled me to the core. Remembering what I had woken up to was enough to knock the laughter right out of me and place me back in that freezer. I suppressed the shiver that tried to run up my spine. I didn’t like the idea of admitting my mistakes to Alexis, but what I disliked even more was the idea of showing him my discomfort. In the end I knew I had little choice, "There isn’t much to tell really."
Why am I trying to annoy my new executioner? Have I learned nothing over the last day? "He found out that I cheated but more importantly, at least to him, he found out how I cheated. So as I'm being led to my money, one of his goons used a stun gun to render me unconscious. And when I woke up, I found that I was being held captive.”
Stroking the left side of his chin Alexis calmly asked me to clarify his confusion. “And just how did Dempsey and his goons manage that?”
He obviously knew more about our abilities than I did, he had to know how to hold someone like us against our will. Perhaps a part of me was getting tired of the interrogation, because my next words were less respectful than I had intended them to be. “Well for starters I came to in a rather spacious and cold freezer with a pair of IVs pumping saline and drugs into my veins.”
With him leaning there against the wall and nodding I couldn’t help but think of those old cartoons, specifically the one with the coyote and roadrunner. I remembered enough of them to know that the roadrunner always won their little skirmishes; next time I needed to be the roadrunner, I was tired of being the coyote. After a moment, Alexis locked his gaze upon my eyes and said, “That’s a decent starting point for him. But you should still have been able to do some forging. Why didn’t you just forge some heat into the lining of your clothing?”
If I could have moved my body at all I would have thrown a punch. It was bad enough that I had to humble myself this way but now he was going to add insult to injury. I attempted to calm my frustration as I replied. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a rather simply technique to infuse your body with some heat, for little enough of an investment.” We stood there, well I stood there in silence until he have registered the fact that I still had no idea what he was talking about. He eventually asked me a follow-up question, though I would have preferred him not to adopt such a condescending tone of voice. “Do you use hand warmers?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, just think on a bigger scale." He said dryly. I tried to think about this, but the thoughts kept slipping from my grasp. Nothing that he had said made any sense. He continued to wait with a hopeful expression plastered upon his face; however, he didn’t wait long before filling in the blank for me. "You would simply turn the inner layer of your cloths into a rather large hand warmer. Make sense?"
Aggravated by the man’s arrogance I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Nice thought that. I wonder why I just didn’t try to change something, anything. Oh wait, I did! Unfortunately for me those IVs were filled with something that was designed to keep me from doing anything like that.”
“They were able to prevent you from forging with some drugs?” Alexis asked in puzzlement.
Did Dempsey know more about people like me than Alexis, or was it Dempsey's woman that knew more? With a mental shudder I forced myself to think about Alexis' question. All that mattered was his shock at Dempsey's ability to hold someone like me. Wait, he doesn’t know how to keep me from, what had he been calling it, forging? Could I possibly...? No, he had to be misleading me, there was no way I would be able to forge something. But Alexis' shock told me quite plainly that I was restrained purely with physical restraints. And if that was true, then it would stand to reason that I could forge something. Not that it would do me any good since I was unable to touch anything with my hands.