Mayra's POV

"Can I take your car, mom?" Mayra called out, the taste of her coffee lingering on her tongue. "I promise I won't crash it," Mayra gave her puppy dog eyes.

"Don't you have lectures today?" Her mom questioned, buttoning up her plaid-brown coat.

"I do, but uh, Mr. Fuller asked me to check up on the woman he caught yesterday, so," Mayra told a blatant white lie, avoiding her mom's eyes and seeming to be busy reading the papers of the file. Her mom raised her eyebrow in skepticism, combing her blonde hair and pulling them back into a ponytail.

"Alright sweetheart, but you better order me an Uber," Julia commanded as she pushed her laptop in her purse. 

"Already did," Mayra gave her mom a sweet smile, being eternally grateful for having found a mother who understood her at every point in her life.  

After her mom left, Mayra impatiently sat on the couch, listening to the traffic outside and the journalist who was still repeating the events of Oscorp. She waited for fifteen more minutes, desperately trying to avoid running into people who she'd now known, like MJ, Riley, and Peter. And as the clock struck nine on the humid, cloudy, and chill morning, she bolted out of her door, springing into her mom's car, driving at a reasonable speed to get answers to the questions gnawing her brain.

Sat in a relatively quiet part of Manhattan, was the brown, bland building, Metropolitan Correctional Center. Dusky grey clouds loomed over it, pigeons perched at the terrace, crows flying in circles in the sky above it, the entire setting giving off an eerie vibe. The area was abnormally quiet with the absence of violent honking and the curses of raged pedestrians. People walked down the road, avoiding the brown building dotted with the opaque windows that mirrored the grey clouds, following everywhere the wind blows. Guard houses were scattered, barbed wires twisting into various knots. The building walls, dirty and wet, rose high, the orange trees around it providing only a little speck of color to the dull atmosphere. And even those trees, withering as the skies changed their phase.

Mayra walked in, flashing her ID, and requesting a visitation to Blake Law. And the moment she stepped inside the rat-infested building, the very moment she started to second guess her actions.

Maybe she should've told Mr. Fuller about the evidence? Maybe she should've sat down and spoken to Eddie? Maybe she shouldn't be here at all?

But now, here she was, standing in a grey hallway, the lamplight above her flickering and the smell of sewage crawling into her nose. She nervously looked at the guards who were examining her ID, discussions taking place in hushed tones.

A major part of her heart wanted the access, access to the answers, but the tiny voice which made herself doubt at every point in life screamed, "IT'S ALL OVER BITCH, GO BACK AND WAIT FOR ANOTHER CASE."

But Mayra wasn't going to listen to that tiny voice, she was here for a purpose, she was here to make sure everyone in the city had a safe life.

After what seemed like hours, she was granted access, Mayra was over the moon, but she gracefully hid her enthusiasm and took a seat against the glass panel. Drumming her fingers and waiting for Blake to walk in from the door behind it. Mayra was not an actual legal member, meaning she had limited time to talk to him, her personal belongings were under the guard's custody, which she could retreat after her visitation was over. However, what Mayra could retain were two papers, each showing Blake in his office at different intervals. She had her weapon, and that was enough.

Mayra heard a new voice clear his throat, looking up to see Blake standing before her eyes. He took a seat in front of her, holding up the telephone to his ear, waiting for Mayra to do the same.

He looked like someone had sucked his entire soul out of him, his green eyes glassy, fragility reflecting from them as if one blow could shatter him into pieces. The bags under his eyes were dark against his awfully pale skin. His lips were chapped and, a gash ran along his cheekbone that was swollen purple. Another cut above ran across his eyebrow and, the incredibly thin strands of his strawberry blonde hair sat on his head like a mop.

"Why are you here?" He asked in his hoarse voice. "Leave me alone, for fuck's sake!"

Mayra clutched her papers tightly, her heart hammering against her chest, with her voice getting stuck in her throat. She wanted all her deductions to be crushed, and as much as that would hurt her ego, at least she'd go to bed knowing her city would sleep safely.

"Where were you when Mr. Anderson was murdered?" Mayra asked, gulping visibly, and looking him straight in the eye.

"I was killing him," he replied nonchalantly.

She smirked, let out a little chuckle, and rolled her eyes, hiding her fear behind the sarcasm she wore. "Sure, you were," Mayra said as she took out the prints of Blake working at Buzzfeed on 12th October 2027. The papers collaged with different time intervals, all of them showing his presence and contradicting his statements.

He stared at them, an intense gaze with which he wished the picture to vanish in front of his eyes. His gaze moved back and forth between Mayra and the papers, his life visibly sucked out of him, his breath halting in his throat.

"Who does your deeds?" Mayra asked, her suspicions now solidifying in front of her just as Blake evaporated. He didn't ask Mayra to show other pictures, didn't ask her for the pictures of his every second spent in the office. He knew she'd seen everything, so he sighed in defeat, trying to fend off Mayra's question with a stutter.

"Wha-what?"

"You weren't there when Anderson was killed because you were clearly at your office laughing like an idiot," Mayra snapped. "So, you either have some high tech which kills people from a distance, or you have a twin, or you have your family getting involved in this," Mayra said, releasing it all out in one breath.

"My family is not involved in this," Blake said sternly, slamming his fist against the table. Mayra played with the curly wire of the telephone, fidgeting with it as the knot in her stomach grew tighter with every passing minute. "And you surely don't have a twin," Mayra said, confirming it by recalling the investigations that were carried out earlier.

"So how did you manage it?" Mayra asked, bending a little forward and searching his emerald eyes for a lie.

"I-I c-can't-"

"Sorry, but we'll have to take your family under custody," Mayra lied, pulling at his vulnerable emotions to get out the truth. She got up, pulling the papers back, hoping he'd turn and spill everything. And he did.

"I am being framed."

Mayra whipped her head back, the words piquing her interest, but at the same time, she hoped, so terribly hoped, that he was crafting a lie. Her heart picked up speed, her hands humid from the sweat, and the adrenaline making her toes and fingers run cold. Her stomach dropped down to the core of the earth as she feared what he would say next. Mayra walked back to her seat, her eyebrows woven into a frown, her dusky eyes reading him.

"What?" She whispered disbelief and fear setting in her voice.

"I-I am being framed, my family has been taken as hostage," Blake said, breaking down in front of Mayra, holding his head in his hands.

Mayra chuckled, not believing a word that he had spilled out in his hopeless and helpless condition. "You need to get better at this part of the job."

Blake scowled, eyeing the ceiling, and wiping the tears that slipped out of his eyes, he stood up with a jolt, the rough sound of metal against a rock cutting through her ears like a chainsaw.

Just as he was about to lock himself up behind the bars, Mayra reconstructed her train of thoughts, replacing her emotions with logic, no matter how heavy her emotion was.

Her mind which, drowned in a delusion, whispered, " Your city is safe, your friends are safe, your mom is safe, you are safe. He is a psychopath who will sew his tapestry of lies to get out here and unleash chaos."

But as she pushed her head out of the waters of delusion, her mind snapped away from the entrance, showing her the picture of New York crumbling to dust while the silent screams of her family rung inside her ears.

And in that second, her train of thoughts took a different direction and she called out to him.

Mere words are not evidence.

Yet she asked him to narrate the incident, and in the end, she'd decide if that were enough evidence or should she search for more. The only reason why she ended up here was because of those recordings and that was enough reason to stay and listen.

"I didn't even know that man, he walked up to my house for plum-plumbing, say-saying he'd check the water supp-supply," a tired voice came out of Blake as he retraced his steps and took his seat in front of Mayra.

The man was covered, his face donning a black mask, his head covered with a woolen cap, masked hands handed Blake's son the toolbox. After five minutes of pretending to fix the pipes under the sink, he aimed a gun at his wife, barking orders for them to get inside the black one. The toolbox handed to his son was filled with explosives, one word of protest and Blake's son would blow up into bits. One word of protest and Blake's wife would have bullet holes riddling her. So, Blake did what he was asked to, call the NYPD, and wait. Distract them with a game and wait.

Wait in agony, wait in distress, wait in fear, wait in weakness. As he watched the man push his family into a black van, driving off to the unknown.

The man had promised he'd see the family three times a week, which was the number of visitations that were granted to families and relatives. Blake would see them well and alive, in fact, he'd just seen them yesterday. And so, if he raised his voice, if he said anything that would imply that he isn't the murderer, his family would be killed. Shot, gutted, buried under a river, burnt in an abandoned warehouse.

Blake was only trying to prolong their life by doing what he was asked. A small flame of hope burning in his fearful heart. Hope that by the time he'd get transferred to Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane, his family would've figured out a way to escape from the monster's torturous clutches. Because Ravencroft wasn't a place for guys like him, he'd die there. Whimpering under the torturous holds of the people that keep supervillains like Doctor Octopus and Electro under control.

"Why did you not say any of this before?" Mayra asked sternly, anxiously scratching her wrists and biting the flesh of her cheek. Metallic taste filling her mouth as she tried to calm herself down. This was bigger than anything she'd ever imagined. This was bigger than her, way, way bigger.

"Because he would kill them, I'm getting to see them now, right? I'm at least getting to see them alive and that's all that matters, if he knows a word about this, he will unleash chaos. So, don't you dare say a word, Mayra. Not a word to anyone, Mayra or I will lose them, do you understand?" Blake yelled, getting agitated and pulling at the roots of his hair. His tears wetting the telephone which was kept facing down as he tried to control his breathing.

"You're going to Ravencroft in a month, and then what? You're going to die, and your family is going to get killed too. He's an insane maniac, if you even, for a second assume that he will let them go after you get shipped there, I label you as the naivest person in this universe," Mayra let out, trying to talk some sense into the man who'd lost everything in just six days.

"But I will die, knowing that they're alive."

"You'll die knowing that they're getting tortured every day."

Mayra stood up from her chair, this time with a clear intention of walking out of the room and into Mr. Fuller's office. But would he want to hear this? Of course, he would. Would Mayra get fired for carrying out her private investigation? Maybe, yes. Did Mayra believe him with all her heart? No. But what good would anything do if they didn't know where the van drove off? That fact mattered the least to Mayra, she had to try. She had to try to climb up the greasy rope that dangled off the cliff, but one wrong move and she'd fall into an abyss.

"He will know you were here," Blake said, a murmur erupting from his lips. Mayra stopped dead in her tracks, her hands leaving the cold metal surface of the doorknob, she cocked her to the side, getting a better look at Blake.

"They were supposed to be visiting me today, it was supposed to be their third visit, but you took the spot since you're not a licensed legal. He will know, Mayra, and believe me when I say he will come after you. Be safe."

Blake retreated to the small door where he'd crept out of, his head hung low, his emerald eyes for the one last time meeting Mayra's cold dark ones. He whispered, "Don't do anything that will harm your safety or threaten my family's life, please, I'm begging you from my soul. Forget this ever happened."

Saying that he vanished behind the grey doors, asking her to forget every incident that took place in the past two days. But she couldn't, even if she banged her head against a rock, she'd still retain this memory as a weathered piece of her nightmare.

And just like that, in about minutes, she believed every word that he had choked out of his mouth in between his sobs. There was no reason to drown herself in the sea of delusions when the water was crystal clear from beneath, showing her the orange flames that crept up at the Empire State Building, the screams clearer as she pulled her head out of the water. The city crumbling as she swam towards it, only to climb to its shore and see the bodies littered across the Brooklyn Bridge. 

Her visualization may have been exaggerated, but this would be the exact feeling that would creep down on her when she would walk down a family in the park, knowing in the back of her head that he was still out there. And one thing she learnt was, his victims never had anything in common, and they could be one of them.

Mayra stood there, fixed at the very position as her mind wandered through the hallway of her thoughts, mostly negative. No one would want to believe this. She didn't want to believe this.

But everyone would if she got evidence, so she marched out of the Metropolitan Correctional Center and drove to Douglaston Parkway, Brooklyn.

To find proof of the black van and trace the origins, all while the creepy feeling of being watched loomed over her.

a/n: ahhhh, so shit's getting real, and i am extremely excited for the next chapter. anyway love you alls❤