Louis sat in the cold metal chair, with his wrists stinging as the handcuffs dug deeper into them. He was in a small, windowless room, sitting in front of a silver table and a short robust man whose hair matched the table in front of them.
They were both staring intensely at each other, trying to figure the other out. Louis had been pinned down on the floor of his living room by three very large and very muscular men.
"Take him down! He's a terrorist!"
"I'm not a terrorist! I didn't do anything," Louis shouted in protest, though he wasn't heard in the slightest.
The men tackled him, making his head hit the ground with so much force it nearly knocked him out. A chorus of curses spilled out of Louis' mouth as he struggled underneath them.
"Come on, I'm not that big! I don't need all three of you on me!" Louis was punched, and slammed back on the ground again, making his brain rattle inside of his head. "Don't give me a concussion. I won't be able to answer your questions if you do that."
"Why won't you shut up!" One of the men shouted.
Louis allowed a smile to spread across his face. Clara often asked him the same question. He always answered with the same response: "Because I can't."
He was taken to a large truck, with two of the other people that were accused of being with the terrorist. They all claimed to be innocent. They all denied being American. They all were scared.
The Watchmen went around the city, picking up the rest of the suspects before closing the windows to the truck, not allowing the passengers to see where they were going.
"So," said Louis, trying to break the terrified silence burdening the car. "How many of you are actually American? I am!" he raised his hands, looking around for anybody to join him.
"Don't you know that'll get you killed?" One of them, a girl, hissed.
"Listen, I've been talking shit about this government for years, and they're not doing anything about it until now. And, they already know we're American. Well, except for you. You look Indian."
Louis pointed to a girl, with a long black braid going down her back and a equally long face to match. "I am."
"Great! What's your nam-" The front half of the car was being banged on, as the Watchmen told them to shut up. "Does anybody else really hate those guys?"
Everybody in the car turned to him with a very aggrivated look on their faces. "WILL YOU SHUT UP!"
Louis looked around the room for the third time. It was still boring and windowless. He noisily sighed, and turned back to the man.
"May I ask a question?" Louis said after an eternity of silence. "Why in the hell am I here?"
However, the man said nothing. He just continued staring, making Louis groan and slump in his given chair. "Well if you won't tell me, can I go home? I have to wake up in the morning for work you know."
Just then, Louis heard a door open behind him that he did not know was there. There were footsteps, that sounded like heels clicking against the floor. He tried to look behind him, but being cuffed to the chair made that nearly impossible.
"Here is all of the information we found on him sir," he heard the woman say. She finally came into view, and he knew exactly who she was.
She had the same black hair as he did, pinned up into a neat professional bun. Though her eyes were a darker shade of blue, they still reminded him of his times as a child.
"I can't believe you Louis," she said, crossing her arms. "My own brother being pulled into questioning. And here I thought you actually grew up."
A smile spread across his face and he relaxed a lot more than he had been. "Mary, it's always great to see you. How long has it been? Three years?"
"Twelve," she replied coldly.
"So bitter and and they still assigned you to be a Watchman? We really are two different people."
She sighed and put down the file in her hands. "Louis this isn't a game. What did you have to do with the attempted attacks on Bradley?"
"What? Oh the guy who tried to kill him? Yeah I found out about it today. Actually when Bradley himself was talking about it."
She slammed her hands down on the table and stared at her brother. "I wasn't asking when you found out. I'm asking what you had to do with it."
"Nothing you shit head! If I found out about it today how could I have something to do with it?"
"Shit head? Is that what you're calling me now? Even though when we were kids, you're the one who would put your dirty diapers on your head. If anybody should be called shit head it's you!"
"That's not as bad as being called Bloody Mary. Remember how everybody at school laughed at you when you wore that white dress, and you got your-"
"Louis shut the hell up!" Mary screeched.
The whole room went dead silent, a smirk playing on Louis' face. Mary fixed herself, and turned to the fat man next to her. She whispered something in his ear, making him nod and walk out of the room.
The siblings stared at each other for a while, and stayed frozen in their glare until the door closed. The noise of the shutting door prompted their laughter to come out, in uncontrolable hiccups and leaving them gasping for air.
Once they got back to some sense of themselves, Mary took the handcuffs off her brother and threw them down on the table.
"Oh thank God you're here Mary," said Louis, rubbing his sore wrists.
"It's been a while since I've heard that one."
"What?"
"'Thank God'; no one says it you know."
Louis chuckled and stood up. "Yep. Well when you live here, those things don't get said very often. Come here! Give me a hug."
He opened his arms, but her face turned serious and shook her head. "Can't. I have a lot of stuff to tell you Louis."
"Come on. Just give me a hug. You said it's been twelve yea-"
"If you don't go into hiding they're going to kill you and all of the people you love, including me, mom and dad, that boy, and your girlfriend. So if you want us to live you better listen to me. Now."
She gave him a hardened look that told him he needed to be quiet and listen to his little sister. He sighed and sat back in his seat. "Okay what do I have to do?"
She allowed a satified smirk spread across her face before giving him the folder of papers she brought in with her. "Read that."
He grabbed it and opened it. Just like she said, it was a profile of him. Eye color, height, nationality, and everything else that made Louis Fredrickson well, Louis Fredrickson.
However, when he flipped the page, he saw something different. It wasn't his profile anymore. It belonged to Kai and everybody he had contact with. There seemed to be everything in there. Pictures of them playing when Kai was smaller, pictures of Clara and Kai, and even Kai and his friend, Eloise.
Louis scanned through, not knowing what to say other than, "Holy shit."
"Yeah, that's only a small part of what they have on that boy of yours. They have everything and they'd use it all to bring everyone who knows him down to Hell. I think they're planing to do it too. If they take the one thing that he values the most out of his life, then that could send him on a rampage of uncontrollable destruction."
"And then they'd use that, and all of these pictures to kill us," Louis whispered. He looked up from the pictures long enough to ask, "Couldn't they do that regardless?"
"Would you be pleased with your government if they killed fifteen people, including two children, for no reason? They have to make it look like it was the right thing to the people of this country. They always have to be right."
Louis started thinking about Kai, and the life he had aheadvof him. He thought about Clara, and how much it hurt him to love her. Aadila, the two Watchmen who always joked around with Kai when they went to the Free Market. Eloise, that adorable little blode girl who was always on Kai's mind.He thought about all of them, and how they would be ruthlessly murdered for nothing.
He looked up at his sister and took a deep breath. "What doI have to do?"