Chapter Nineteen

Edward had spent his time researching by going through old news stories and articles. Fay had been seen in public a few weeks before at a charity ball with Derrick McKenzie, the son of the gang’s head. According to reports, they left together and had been seen together a few times following, so it was reasonable that they would live together. Lars McKenzie was on record for owning a community of condominiums, so that was the first place he looked. After almost a day sitting in the car and watching, Fay finally came out of one of them and hopped on her motorcycle, driving out of sight.

Scott and Edward didn’t move a muscle until nearly ten minutes had passed and they were sure that Fay wouldn’t come back having forgotten her wallet or anything. He remembered that was a habit of hers. In so many ways, she hadn’t changed a bit. He clung onto that since it was the only thing within miles that was in his wheelhouse. Edward was barely blinking from being so far out of his element. He sat straight up in the car seat breathing steadily while Scott checked the functionality of the gun he’d brought for the tenth time.

“You’re sure about this?” Scott said. Edward gave him a look to talk quieter, but no one was listening. “If we get caught, you could go to jail.”

“I’m sure,” Edward said. “And you could go to jail too. Once again, you don’t have to do this.”

“I want to do this. After what Fay’s done to you, she deserves this.”

The two opened the doors of the car and ambled up the street to the front of the condo. Already, it was going to spark suspicion. They were two men in hoodies walking to the house of a notorious crime boss in a neighborhood speckled with leather jackets. There weren’t any lights on the inside, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone home. They both knew that. Edward knocked on the door and waited for something to happen, ready to turn on his heel and run if something went wrong. No one answered. Minutes passed, and there was nothing but silence.

Edward knew how to pick a lock. He had done all of the research he needed. He had spent the past few days doing nothing but practicing it, but this time was the only one where his fingers were stiff and shaking. It took a horrifyingly long time to get the door open with his two metal pins, but that was why he needed Scott to be on guard with the gun while he worked. Eventually, something in the lock clicked. Edward pushed the door open and Scott jumped, aiming his gun for the doorway. He wanted to yell at Edward for not warning him but dismissed the thought. At least they were in.

 A television and a laptop had been stolen from his mothers’ house before the fire. If either of those things were in the house, it was definitive proof that the occupants at the very least would have information. If he found a phone or camera, he would either look through them for evidence or take them with him if he ran out of time. He’d leave them in the backyard when he was done and the occupants would pass it off as dropping or forgetting them. The only form of transport near the house was the motorcycle, so any gratuitous amounts of gasoline in the house would be evidence. Just in case none of those worked out, he knew how to dust for fingerprints. There weren’t any at his mother’s house to check against, but he could go back there and check again any time.

It was obvious why Fay lived there. She always put so much value in her home, and the condo noticeably resembled the layout of the old houses they used to live in. The tables and chairs were put in the same way, and there was even a painting on the wall displaying her inherited Scottish pride. The major difference was that the staircase leading to the bottom floor was over near the right wall. The place was messy, but then again, so was any house that Edward remembered Fay living in. Beer cans and bottles lay around everywhere. Edward spotted a pile of yellow pill bottles on the kitchen table. Her rehabilitation apparently didn’t stick.

“I’ll look downstairs,” Scott whispered, just in case someone else was listening.

Edward closed the door behind him and nodded, “I’m coming with you. I’ll circle back up here when we know it’s secure.”

So the two went down the stairs, making an effort to step with heels forward to make as little noise as possible. There were two rooms with partially opened doors and one that was closed. That was a red flag.

Edward looked back at Scott, who had the gun in his hands. The plan had been silently made. The door was one that didn’t have a lock on it, so all it took was a twist of the doorknob to open it. When finally encountered with the person who had been hiding inside, Scott jumped and aimed the gun, but the face was too familiar for Edward to be scared.

“Mr. Burgess?” he decided to call him. What was his name? Adair, was it? Fay’s father had a face that even as a child, Edward knew was unforgettable. His nose was pointed and his eyes were always a little too close together. He had lost some weight over the years and now had streaks of grey in his hair. His skin seemed to hang over the bones of his face in an animal-like way. The man lowered the handgun he was barely hanging onto as soon as he recognized Edward.

Adair was speechless. The room he was standing in looked like it had been ripped off of a different house. It was tidy and small, with only a bed, a tall closet, and a coffee table. On the coffee table, there was a photograph from years ago with him, his wife, and Fay as a teenager posing for the camera. Next to that lay a pistol. As Edward stepped towards the man, he inched back in shock.

“Mr. Burgess, do you remember me?” Edward asked. Scott was silent, but observant, and still gripping his gun.

The old man’s throat contorted like an accordion. “Edward�"it’s been so long. What are you doing here?” His voice was virtually unchanged. Edward didn’t have a moment to answer before Adair snapped, “You need to leave right now. It’s not safe here. Your life is in danger.”

“Do you know if Fay was involved in burning down my mother’s house?” he asked. It was a gut response as he slowly began to understand the situation. If Fay came home and saw him and Scott with her father and a gun, there was a good chance she wouldn’t let them walk out.

Mr. Burgess frantically shook his head. “You have to go,” he demanded, “You don’t understand how much my daughter hates you. She will kill you if she finds you here.”

 “Scott, will you start looking?” Edward asked, looking back to him. Scott nodded and turned around, not giving Adair another look. He disappeared, and neither of the two in the room breathed until the thumping of his footsteps up the stairs stopped. When it was silent again, Edward looked back to Fay’s father.

“Fay said that you moved out of the city a while ago,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

The curiosity surprised Adair. He wasn’t expecting Edward to care. “Emilia and I split up after the bankruptcy. She’s living with her mother in another part of the city and this was the only place I had to go.”

“Fay said that you abandoned her after she was released from prison.”

“It was the worst mistake I’ve ever made,” Adair said. The volume of his voice was steadily rising. “I was just so scared of what she could become that I forgot to try and stop it. I’ve been trying to make it up to her the entire time I’ve been here, but she won’t listen to me. She’s another person now. How have you been, Edward?”

“I’m okay,” he responded, taken aback by the question. He had never been too close with the man standing in front of him.

He nodded with a sigh of what looked like relief. “Is your mother alright?”

“She’ll be fine. What about you and Fay?”

“All of this is my fault, Edward. I wasn’t there for her and she found her own path. I’m so sorry for everything that she did to you and to this city. God, she’s terrifying.”

“So she did burn down my mother’s house?” Edward asked, taking a microscopic step towards him.

Adair went silent. When he closed his eyes, Edward could see Fay in him. They had the same type of face, and that just made it easier for him to demand answers. The old man saw the hostility growing and shifted back and forth between his feet and shook his head in a way that Edward hadn’t seen in anyone since his own father.

“What did she do?” he asked again, louder. As the seconds ticked by, he felt his patience waning. Fay could be back any moment to kill them both. Still, Mr. Burgess didn’t react except for the glinting and swelling in his eyes that usually heralded tears.

“She’s my daughter.” He tried to yell, but it came out as a strangled whimper. He spoke like each word took years off his life. “She’s all I have left. I’m so sorry, Edward.”

The sound of a door opening made Edward’s chest implode. All of the hatred and spite he had in him dissolved in his stomach as fear started to seep in. Everything in him blended together to form a single thought that pounded at him�"where to hide?

A lock clicked shut. The yelling that came from upstairs wasn’t Fay’s. It was a man’s, and the footsteps suggested there was more than one. Mr. Burgess couldn’t make a sound. When Edward looked to him, he glared back with eyes that silently screamed at him to run. The first place Edward’s eyes went to was the closet in the corner where a few sets of clothes were hanging, leaving just enough room for him to fit inside. Faster than he thought he could, Edward climbed in and shut the doors. As Aries came down the stairs into the room with his goons, Mr. Burgess moved towards the closet and put his hands on the handle to explain away the noise of it shutting. Edward heard that. Fay’s father was still on his side.

Aries appeared in the doorway with a man and a woman, both wearing Spartan jackets with their hands on the guns in their pockets. Aries held a pistol in his hands that gravitated upwards and out to the only other person he saw in the room.

“The front door’s unlocked,” he scowled to Fay’s father, his fingers drumming on the handle of his gun. “Want to explain?”

From inside the closet, Edward could make out Adair’s stuttering. The man’s skin was slowly going cold, and it was noticeable. And if Edward could tell from inside a closet, Aries wouldn’t be fooled. “I went outside to check the mail. I must have forgotten to lock the door. That’s all.”

“I told you to stay in this room.” Aries said, lowering his gun back to his side. Mr. Burgess knew that he didn’t entirely believe him. Venom was dripping from his eyes. “Remember�"you being Fay’s dad doesn’t mean s**t to me. You stir up anything at all, and you get a bullet in the head.”

Edward heard a gunshot. It was muffled through the closet, but the sound was unmistakable. His heart stopped for half a second as he thought that it was Mr. Burgess that had been shot. No�"the sound would have been clearer and he would be able to smell the gunpowder. That gunshot sounded like it must have been from another room in the house. Suddenly, the memory of Scott’s gun began to seep into his mind and it felt like ice water dripping into his blood. What have I gotten him into? The distant sound of footsteps and a door opening followed.

But no�"no one else came through the door after Aries closed it, and any footsteps from up the stairs before the gunshot would have been audible. He was sure that no one he didn’t know about was in the house. The gunshot was Scott’s. He was trying to lure Aries upstairs.

Aries whipped out his gun at the sound, aiming up where he guessed the gunshot came from through the bottom floor’s ceiling. He looked back at the two behind him and nodded. Edward heard the pair of footsteps going up the stairs signaling their leave. By his calculations of sounds, there was only one other person in the room left besides himself and Mr. Burgess. He was willing to bet his life on that. Just not yet.

“You have anything to do with that?” Aries hissed, training his pistol on Mr. Burgess’ forehead. He shook his head and shut his eyes.

Aries exhaled through his teeth. Mr. Burgess’ eyes didn’t open again until the click against wood that sounded when Aries threw his gun down on the coffee table. The gangster inched closer to him with his hands behind his back and the tenderest voice he could manage.

“If you didn’t, you have nothing to worry about,” he said. “If you say nothing, that just tells me that you did, and you’re going to die. Have anything to say yet?”

Mr. Burgess’ voice was bellowing like the hole in his throat had swollen. Edward heard it as a mumble through the closet door, but he understood what the man was saying. He understood that Adair wasn’t speaking to Aries, but to him. And he felt the trembling in the man’s voice in his chest with the knowledge that those words might be Adair’s last. “He doesn’t have a gun!”

Edward burst out from the closet and landed on the ground. Pain blasted up his ankles from the jump. The friction against the floor scraped his knuckles but it was the only thing keeping him upright. The burning in his feet made it feel like he was wading through water as he put one foot in front of the other towards the door and the staircase. Aries wasn’t wading. In that moment, he seemed inhumanly fast, like fire.

The palms of his hands met Edward’s shoulder like bullets as he threw him against the wall. Fire wracked the side of his body and ran down to his legs. He would have fallen if Aries’ fingers weren’t clasped around him so tightly that he could have thrown him across the room. Flashes of searing light appeared in Edward’s vision that faded away as patches of white, one of them obscuring Aries’ face. He didn’t know what was happening when Aries shoved his back to the wall and pinned him there with a hand on his throat.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here, Montgomery?” he snarled, his breath warm on Edward’s face. A fist met the area just below Edward’s ribcage. Suddenly, all the blood in his body evaporated and the only thing he could do was cough.

“Aries,” Mr. Burgess tried to say. Neither of the other two in the room heard him.

“You know,” Aries said, baring his teeth, “The others want to indoctrinate you, but I don’t think so. No, I think I’ll put a bullet in your crafty little brain right now. Or actually, Fay would be pretty pissed if I didn’t let her do it. Remember her, Montgomery? Think she’ll be happy with you?”

From out of the corner of his vision, Edward saw movement behind Aries�"a blur making its way for the staircase. Aries followed his eyes over his shoulder to Adair and darted around, but of course his grip on Edward’s throat didn’t loosen.

“Stop right there if you want to die quick,” he yelled, freezing Mr. Burgess in time and space. Before he could finish the last word, Edward kicked in the joint of his knee with striking precision using everything he had left in him. There was a crack. The force sent him falling forward as Aries recoiled and fell back onto the floor with a cry of pain.

Edward jumped back to his feet, leaning against the wall and not moving while he watched the man on the floor writhe towards the other side of the room and extend a hand for the top of the coffee table. The man who had hurt him looked so pathetic beneath his feet. His face was twisted in pain. It was almost mesmerizing. Edward didn’t see what Aries was doing until he was on one knee and his fingers were already around the handle of his gun.

His instinct in that moment told Edward to jump on him, landing his knee in Aries’ side with a vicious splintering noise. His hand was clawing at Aries’ wrist trying to wrench the gun away but not being able to touch it. Aries was holding him down by his throat and kicking at whatever he could. Aries couldn’t aim at Edward, and Edward couldn’t reach the gun. Attacks on his face and eyes loosened his grip little by little, but he refused to let go. He’d be dead if he let go. Edward’s spine shook when the first gunshot went off. The muscle in his body went numb from the waves and the stench of gunpowder, and for a second, Aries could wrench his arm away from Edward’s grip. Edward attached his hand back to Aries’ arm, but low enough that he could now blindly wave and aim the gun.

Another gunshot hit the wood of the closet that Edward had hid in. Aries swung with his other arm and legs, hitting Edward once in the crook of his shoulder and then in the side of his stomach. Still, Edward hung on knowing that letting go of the gangster’s arm would be his death. A third gunshot sounded, and wood splintered. Each shot was draining away the feeling in Edward’s fingers and giving Aries’ aim more leeway. Soon, Aries would be able to shoot him off. There wasn’t a way to climb up and grab the gun away without letting go just long enough for him to plant a bullet in his head. A kick to the stomach made Edward lose even more of his grip until he was only desperately clutching at Aries’ elbow. He was in too much pain to think of a way out. All he could think to do was hold on.

While Adair was being shot, Edward counted the opportunities he had to stop it, but all of them would result in his own death and the death he had tried to stop soon after. He was so painfully helpless to stop Aries from swinging the gun towards Mr. Burgess. If the man wanted to run, he wouldn’t have had time being so far away yet so tantalizingly close to the door. Edward held onto Aries’ arm and felt the vibration shaking his body as the trigger was pulled. The kicking and punching at Edward stopped once the sound of a bullet hitting flesh echoed around the room, making every other noise wilt. Edward didn’t see Mr. Burgess hitting the floor�"just Aries looking up with wide eyes at his girlfriend’s dead father. That was enough of a distraction for Edward to strike his elbow down onto Aries’ mouth, spilling blood. As he yelled in pain, his grip around the gun finally loosened enough for Edward to wrench it free. Soon, he was on his feet, pointing the pistol down at the man on the floor shaking so much that the barrel wavered between a shot at the carpet and a trajectory for right between Aries’ eyes. Edward could have stood there, staring at the bloody, defeated man for hours, but the sound of a motorcycle entering the driveway acted like a punch in the back of his head.

Without time even for a precisely aimed gunshot, he ran for the stairs and out the front door, not being able to feel the ground beneath him. Sitting on the motorcycle slowing down in the driveway outside the house was Fay, her long, purple hair sticking out from the bottom of her helmet. Once she stopped, she only saw the back of a person who was unmistakably Ed Montgomery holding a gun and running to the car parked on the other side of the road. It took her a moment to understand where he was running from, but it all made sense once she saw her front door cracked open.

She ran into the door of her home and down the stairs, tracing Edward’s steps and throwing her helmet onto the floor. The door to the guest room was usually closed, but as she heaved and ran, she saw it gaping open and radiating the smell of gunpowder. Entering her dad’s room, she was met with the sight of her father completely devoid of everything a living being had and her boyfriend lying on the ground with blood in his mouth.

“What happened?” she gasped, her knees trembling as she went to her father’s side.

Aries leaned up on his forearms and shook his head, spitting onto the floor. “I’m so sorry. I tried to stop him, but Montgomery came in here and shot your father.”