The Frosted Files:Open Eyes

//Chapter 1\\

    The handcuffs dug at my skin, too tight around my wrists, as I sat on the metal folding chair across from the rookie. I had cooperated, coming in peacefully, but the APD still cuffed my wrists and ankles, and even went out of their way to give us an “extra secure” room, secured by a door akin to a bank vault. I guess they hoped that this special room could keep me contained, which I doubt, but it’s nice to have my skill recognized. The plain, off-white walls looked like dried bone, and the overhead lights buzzed in a way that seemed to specifically annoy me. The one-way window at the back of the room sat reflecting the room, trying it’s very best to make the 10 by 10 cell look bigger. 
    “Now, Frost, I understand you run a local, uh, gang, per say?” Fellows asked, which I responded to with a snort. He hardened his gaze, and met mine - and soon after looked away.
    “You could say that, Detective,” I said, “I mean, we’ve only established this a dozen times already since you dragged me into this damned room.”
    The kid lowered his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose and sighing. He pushed his glasses back up, shuffling a few papers.
    “Frost, your tag was left on the bodies - give the act up.”
    This is what had been confusing me, what made me stay - some bodies were found with the snowy-white blue bandana of the Frost Inc. Gang tied around their ankles, as tags. The thing is, I hadn’t killed recently - hadn’t gotten blackout drunk either, so unless I was sleep-killing, I knew it wasn’t me. Sure, I could probably walk out and leave, but I also wanted to know who did the killings and marked them as mine - who is giving me credit for things I didn’t do.
    Credit in this way is very risky. A few kills, sure, more rep in the gangs. But what happens when whoever is doing this bombs a hospital and leaves my claim behind? I may be damn well unkillable, but I wasn’t immortal.
    “I didn’t kill those folk, honest,” I said for what felt like the hundredth time that day. We had been here for several hours now, and kept going in the same loops over and over. This rookie was playing by the book, hard, hardly giving me any wiggle room to work. 
    The rookie, Detective Fellows of the Arbitrium Police Department, slammed a hand on the table, in the very same place he had multiple times before. The poor table likely had a dent by now, from all the bad-cop act he was doing. 
    “Bullshit, Frost. Your tags were on the corpses, plain as snow in summer.”
    I rolled my eyes, tired of this back and forth game. I did have plans today, plans that did not include bickering with some rookie detective in the police department of the city I ran.
    “That’s not my style, Detective. Jason, is it? Not my style, Jason. Mutilation to that degree is reserved for enemies of my company as a whole - I don’t even know who the victims are, let alone why this happened, when, how, et cetera.”
    “Style or not, they were killed and marked as yours.”
    “Style is important, Jason.”
    “Until it’s convenient to drop it. And please, do not call me Jason, Frost. Detective Fellows works fine, thank you.”
    “Jason, why would I drop my style? It’s not like I have much to hide, from you or anyone else.”
    “So you can weasel your way out of paying for the bullshit you do on a daily basis. You’re slippery, but you can’t keep avoiding the law just because you fund this rundown hellhole of a city.”
    My name is Fate Frost, gang leader of The Snowmen - or, Frost Incorporated, if you want to look at things legally. Y’know how some drug cartels will work under the font of being mattress stores? I did that, but with a general production business - we made pretty much anything and everything. My gang ran a lot of things in this city - the drug trade, organized burglaries, et cetera. We also fund schools, churches, and homeless shelters. This is my city, after all, and I’ll be damned if people suffer when they don’t deserve it. 
    Running a city without federal help takes some serious funding - if I were on any legal charts, I’m sure I’d be near the top ten of the nation, if not the world. I funded a lot of the businesses and services of the town, too, including the police department, in case Fellows’s ranting didn’t make that obvious. 
    Another slam to the table snapped me out of my thinking, bringing me back to the painful reality in which I sat.
    “I’m telling you, it’s a setup, Jason. The victims had no debt to me, nor anyone under me. They hadn’t wronged us in any way - they were a white picket fence family, man,” I told the kid, trying to soften my voice at the end. Fellows was young - I couldn’t tell how young, but given the fact he had arrested me, he must be pretty new to how things work around here. His eyes still shone with the hope of greatness, and he wore a cheap overcoat to try and seem more professional. He kept eyeing the glasses that sat on my nose, which always seemed to have some form of text or something on the lenses. This changed with time and with whatever input I provided, and seemed to throw him off his act.
    I leaned forward, resting my chin in my bound hands. 
    “Take me to them, and I’ll prove it wasn’t me. This time, at least,” I added, grinning. I have been known to kill, which is likely why he arrested me in the first place. It was with good reason, though, I swear: they were terrible, terrible people that the legal system couldn’t catch up to. Think child predators, folk careful about covering their legal tracks, and the like - scum. 
    This is my city.
    I guess the tension got to him, after all these hours in this tiny, tiny room, because he launched his fist into my nose.
    It didn't break - the kid couldn’t throw a punch - but I was stunned as I sat back in my folding chair heavily, eyes watering as the shock of a punch to the face went through my system. After I got over the fact that he actually punched me, I ran a hand over my face to wipe away whatever tears may have formed, and the fumes of anger kicked in. I leaned back into the chair and kicked the cheap metal folding desk up and towards him - a difficult task to do with cuffed ankles - catching him in the chest, sending him backwards into the concrete floor. 
    A little stream of some shiny metal slipped down my tailored slacks, to the cuffs on my ankles, and flowed into the lock hole, then up to the set on my wrists. A brief second later, the cuffs opened, and the nanotech slipped back into its hiding place. Fellows was just getting up as the cuffs popped off, which I tucked into a pocket as I kept my hands together. The set on my ankles stayed there, though now open.
    Oh, yeah, if running the city wasn’t enough to keep me out of trouble, the fact I had a post-military grade weapon on me at all times seemed to. Usually, at least. The folks in the super hero business made nanotech seem so easy and worthwhile that I just had to develop some. 
    “Discipline, Detective. I’d hate to see you this loose with your trigger, in my city.”
    Fellows growled and set the desk back up, picking up fallen papers and folders, some of which had fallen open. I looked over the desk at these files, and blinked a few times in an exaggerated fashion. The smart glasses (also developed by me) took pictures of the papers, easily accessible later when I had time to decipher the legal code and such. 
    “You’re not leaving this room until you confess. Even if you weren't cuffed, that door would hold up to a pickup truck going 80. Cold, hard steel, just like the bars you’ll be behind. How’s that sound, Frost, huh? Do you think your precious lover would find another dick to suck? Do you think your gang,” -he spat at gang- “would find a replacement? Huh?” Fellows chuckled a little, leaning over the table.
    This time, it was my turn to shock him. Unlike the kid, I know how to throw a punch, I know how to push it with intent into doing what I want - so when I broke his nose, the crunch of cartilage cracking, his eyes showed more surprise than pain. His head snapped back, and his hands flew to his face faster than a beggar grabbing a stray bill, blood gushing out onto the table and papers, tears soon joining the mix. 
    I threw the unlocked handcuffs at him, crossing my arms as they bounced off his thin frame hidden beneath the cheap clothes. 
    The kid had gotten so caught up in the bad-cop act that he went a tad too far, too close for comfort, and I had to let him know it. 
    His hand twitched towards the holster at his belt, but then he held a finger to his earpiece, then muttered something, head tilted forward as blood dripped between his fingers.
    “Come again?”
    He remained silent.
    I walked up next to him, and put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched.
    “Come again, Detective Jason Fellows of the Arbitrium Police Department, Northern District Division?”
    He flinched again at hearing his full title spread out. I know he knows I have the power to rip his job from his hands and make sure it’s never within reach again.
    “You’re a bastard, Frost, but the fellas in Forensics seem to agree - none of your DNA has been found at the scene. Yet. Polygraph hasn’t gone off either, it seems.” He glanced at the one-way glass in the back of the room briefly, before looking back to me. 
    As far as I knew, the only wireless polygraph being produced was made by my very own company. What a dick move. 
    Fellows pressed a finger to his earpiece again.
    “Seems the higher ups heard you ask to see the scene. Cruiser’s ready.”
    He looked me up and down, sighing.
    “Come on.”