Chapter 10: Framework

Romaine's POV

I've been going through these last few days not being able to look Cassandra in the eyes or have a normal conversation with either her or mother. Life was great and I was enjoying every second of it, and just that, everything went downhill.

The only two women that I know in my life don't want to talk to me, or atleast don't know what to say. And the worst part of all of this is; my life isn't done going downhill yet.

Donte hadn't been at the lab all afternoon, and he wasn't picking up on his comms. We were starting to get worried but I suspected that he just had to go home and do something this afternoon. Dondre and Cassandra were encouraging me to go check on him

I figured I'd take their advice and just run over there to make sure that he was ok. I haven't seen my aunt or other cousin in a long time anyway; so it'd be a win:win. Obviously I wasn't wearing my speedster suit since I planned to say hi to then and stuff. So all I wore were my friction resistant sneakers.

It was already dark out so I knew I wouldn't be able to stay for long and that I'd have to go soon anyway. When I stopped at the yard, I went around to the backdoor; everyone uses the backdoor, weird enough, noone uses the front one.

When I saw that the door was open I took it as a sign that someone was still awake or something. I stepped foot through the door into what I could only describe as a bloody haven.

Blood was..everywhere. The place reeked of blood to the point where it made me sick. The couch was stained, the walls, and the floors aswell. Over on a wall to my left I saw writing.

When I could finally get my fear struck feet to walk over to the walls, I accidentally stepped in multiple pools of blood. My shoes were dripping with this abundant red liquid. My knees were cracking with every step.

I finally got close enough to see what the writing was, only to behold my own name, written in fresh, draining blood. My eyes now felt completely empty, my jaw on the floor, my body devoid of all thought and reasoning, I fell on my knees.

"Ahhh" I heard the voice of pure evil from behind me

I turned my head, looking at hell in his eyes

"I see you have found my little artwork."

"Art? Art?! You mutilated Donte and the rest of my family and you call that art?!"

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

"DIE!!!"

I up and ran towards him to punch him in the face as fast as I could, but in less than the blink of an eye, he was gone.

Faint blue and red lights started flashing on the walls. Sirens began echoing in my ears. As the lights got bright the sirens grew louder. Footsteps stormed around the house. All the while I was still paralyzed; unable to move my body parts, they all felt numb and void.

"Put your hands in the air where we can see them!" The voice of the man echoed in the room

It was as if they sent a whole force of police officers. My hands followed the officer's command and went up on their own accord. When I felt a liquid streaming down my arms I didn't realize at first that it wasn't sweat.

"We've got the supect" the officer said into his walkie talkie, "caught him red handed."

My mind was struck with fear and my feet attempted to take me away. As I entered superspeed the police officer's gun gave off an earsplitting sound, followed by me falling to the ground.

"Suspect is an X-Genist. I repeat, Suspect is an X-Genist." He said,

"Stand by" I heard a response from his walkie talkie.

My hands clenched my thigh as it burned in pain. All I could think of at that point was "death would feel better than this".

~~~~~~~

I was placed in the back of a police vehicle. The lights routinely flashed blue and red from outside. I had lost the will to fight back, as my situation finally begun to sink in; my cousins and my aunt, were both slaughtered by my worst enemy, and I'd have to take the blame for it. All the evidence pointed toward me. Black Zero set up everything perfectly. There's no trace of him at all.

A random officer walked up to the one guarding my door. He asked the officer guarding me what I was being accused of.

"It's crazy really," he started, "the kid murdered his family in cold blood. We only managed to ID the mother so far, turns out it's his aunt-in-law. We haven't yet identified the others, but the amount of blood points to there being more than one. And she was the mother of two children."

"That's insane.."

"It all makes you wonder, what would make him want to murder them? And then proceed to splatter their blood on all the walls."

Hearing their comments about me made me lose all hope. I had nothing to do with this, but I might as well have. I should've been there to protect them.

~~~~~~~

I've been driving for a decent amount of time now. I wasn't really paying attention to my surrounding earlier. The cars stopped at a secluded part of the coast. I was escorted out of the vehicle and brought to an armored boat, accompanied by 4 officers. I was confused at first as to where we were going, but I soon realized that they were transporting me to an offshore prison.

The dim watchtower lights didn't help with my anxiety of being brought to a prison that I can only assume houses the most maniacal of human beings.

I immediately attempted to vibrate my hands to take off the cuffs, but mt powers weren't working. I don't know how I didn't realize up until now, but somehow they managed to create cuffs that block my powers. I assume this is how they would transport the other X-Genists.

Making land on the prison grounds, the giants gates slowly opened, as I entered the highly fortified walls. The structure of the prison was bizarre, and the material appeared to be some sort of metal rather than traditional concrete.

After going through some sort of protocol, they took a mugshot of me, a blood sample, and gave me a barely suitable grey jumpsuit. I was assigned to cell 7, but before I was brought there, they put me to sit in a dark room.

I sat there for a while, pondering what the purpose of putting me in there would be. They turned on the lights, which revealed the double-sided glass, and the chair on the other side of the table. All of the features led to me believing that I was in an interrogation room. But why interrogate me at this point in the process?

Not too long after, a tall man in a trench coat entered the room.

"Goodnight," he spoke, sitting across from me, "My name is Director Hennessy, and you're going to tell me, everything."