Ascension - Book Eight - Man x Man

Chapter 43

(Verando's POV)

The ride to the police station is long, bordering on uncomfortable with his height trending on to tall for the cramped car. Absently, he slowly rotates his wrist from side to side, feeling the weight of the cuffs and memorizing the way they roll around on his joints. They would be easy to slip, it wouldn't be necessary to pick them. If he didn't put up a fight, it would be unlikely they would use any 'advanced' measures on him yet he couldn't help but wonder if his position would get him special treatment. 

Pulling up to the station, he scans over the building, pleased to see it looks much more average than he expected. No government facility, at least not yet, he slides out of the car and the second police officer follows beside them with an arm full of his belongings from the studio. 

"This is the er- Lycan?" The clerk glances up over her glasses, in her late fifties, she pauses as she meets his gaze. "Oh. You really are Mr.Mercer."

"Don't fraternize, Sue, you heard him clear as we did." The superior tells her roughly. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize protesting for freedom was a crime." Verando retorts, rolling his eyes as he's pushed towards the entrance. 

"I'm sorry, Mr.Mercer." The younger officer murmurs, placing his items down on the table. 

Two hand guns, his karambit knives, the smaller gun from his belt, the knife off his calf, the pile slowly grows as the man's near shakey hands trace over him. "Why would any citizen need so many weapons?" The superior officer sorts through, cycling the guns to confirm they were in fact loaded. 

"Didn't your mother teach you not to play with guns?" Verando cocks an eyebrow before staring straight ahead. "Well, you tell me, you are the one who just arrested me."

"Sounds like someone who would do whatever it took not to get caught. Maybe someone who has something to hide?" The man glances him up and down, Verando doesn't offer a shrug, or even acknowledgment. "We've been pretty lax, do you have any idea the case that Johnathan Campbell has been building against you?"

This piques his interest. "Well, we do have quite the affair..."

Shoving him forward, they guide the taller man down the hall to a holding room, seating him firmly in the cool metal chair. Verando keeps his hands in his lap, tracing his thumb over the texture of the metal on the cuffs. The silver alloy burned his skin, a clever trick, but not enough to keep him from slipping them. So they did have some measures, it was impressive that they had so far not treated him much different from the average criminal. 

Perhaps the system was working, perhaps those taken into custody no longer disappeared into the abyss that was the government railroad of horrors. 

The table lights up, causing him to recoil, and before him the list of his crimes is laid out. The murder of Red, four different political figures, multiple 'missing' persons that he recognized as elementals coupled with video footage of his influence in combat in Newyork and in France. Namely, his wedding and the events that took place to cause his younger self to arrive. All laid out on video in snippets that hit him like a bomb shell to his subconscious. 

Lotta was the professional in this instance, it would be his job to keep his cool until she could get here. It was concern that his face in the public would begin to connect dots. While he couldn't necessarily deny the majority of the cases against him, they were circumstance save for the hit jobs paid for by the very government that was prosecuting him. 

Finally, the superior officer enters the room, sitting down across from the lycan. 

He scans over the offenses, shaking his head in what some might consider disappointment. "Interesting that you can be tied to all these places, while still maintaining this public figure. A hit man.. that's quite an charge. Though seeing the amount of weapons you had on you when we took you in, I was much more convinced. Anyone who gets in your way, it would seem, gets killed-" He touches the screen, causing the four political targets to pop up.