Chapter Twenty

Famed attorney Edward Montgomery has been apprehended for the murder of Adair Burgess. The respected attorney was arrested last afternoon by police officers on charges for breaking and entering and manslaughter pressed by the victim’s daughter, Fenella ‘Fay’ Burgess, and Derrick ‘Aries’ McKenzie, the son of infamous gang boss, Lars Schulz-McKenzie. Further details are unavailable at this time….

The radio going on in the background gave her solace. Every few hours, it would replay that message, the news anchor’s shrill voice making her wince whenever she heard her own name being spoken in the radio’s static language. Fay sat on the couch in the living room gnawing away at what used to be a full bag of chips, staring at the muted television and waiting for the next time the radio replayed that broadcast. Her knuckles were red and sore from ripping at the skin on her face and throwing punches at the walls. Her nails had left long scratches down her cheeks that were only starting to heal. Next to her were empty bottles of pills that made her eyes burn and her nose bleed, but the few hours of sleep that they gave her were worth it. An escape from the pain was worth anything.

The front door opened�"she could tell from the sudden rush of wind coming from the bottom of the staircase�"and soon Aries was standing next to her, stroking her hair. His voice was soft and nearly drowned out by the radio. Edward had sprained his knee that day when he came, and because of it, Aries spent a nanosecond more on the other leg with each step. From being outside, his hands smelled of motorcycle grease and metal. Fay wanted him to stop getting oil in her hair, but not enough to say anything.

“I brought you lasagna from that place you like,” he said. “It’s your favorite. I’ll heat it up for you if you want.”

He elicited eye contact from her, but she stayed silent and unresponsive besides that. Aries knelt down next to her and brought his hand to hers. She just shook her head and returned her attention to the television.

“I talked to some people,” Aries said. “There’s no way Montgomery’s making it out of this one. His career is done.”

“Remember the day you burned down his mother’s house?” Fay asked, her voice cracking and hoarse. Once she opened her mouth, cold ran down her body, leaving her with pinpricks down her throat. “You did what I said, didn’t you? You knocked her out and got her outside before the house burned down?”

Aries nodded. “I did.”

“It’s weird. My dad has been gone for most of my life, but I always knew he was out there. Now there’s just nothing. I had my chance to talk to him, but I didn’t. Why would he shoot my dad?” she breathed, pulling her arms and legs closer to herself to try to keep warm. “He’s mad with Pluto and the gang. The arson was done by all of us, and Pluto doesn’t care about my dad. His death doesn’t hurt the gang in any way. Ed wouldn’t shoot him unless he was specifically trying to hurt me. This is a personal grudge against me. He wants to play a game with me. He wants me to retaliate so that we can keep going until we kill each other.”

“So you’re not going to make a play at him?”

Fay’s eyes screwed shut trying to wrench the image of Ed running from her house from her mind. There was a thought that had preoccupied her since that day. She thought that if she was in her right mind�"the Spartan state of mind�"she would have run after him, pulled him out of his car, and strangled him with her grocery bag, his eyes slowly growing as destitute of life as her dad’s. It had played over and over in her head to the point that it was imprinted in front of her. He was still alive because she wasn’t a Spartan that day. “I shouldn’t. I should forget about him and move on before this kills me, but I can’t. He took away everything I had, and just when I was starting to rebuild my life, he takes my father. I can’t let him get away with that.”

Aries sighed, and she felt his breath on her hand. “Baby, this is dangerous. This kind of stuff drives people insane. Let me and the gang take care of him for you.”

“Then maybe I’m a little insane.” Her heart raced. It hadn’t before, and the sudden speed hit her like a mallet to the back of her throat. The movie playing across her vision froze, and all she saw was Ed Montgomery. All throughout her life, whenever anything bad ever happened to her, the first face she saw was his. He had been training her to see him whenever she was in pain. Now, his face flashed in front of her over and over, and she wanted nothing but to rip him out of her mind and strangle him. If she knew at any point in the past that knowing Edward was going to make her end up like this, she would have snapped his neck while she could have.

Ed broke into her house, hurt the love of her life, and killed the man who raised her. He abandoned her after she lost her baby and then sent her to prison. He just couldn’t make himself stay the hell out of her life even though knowing him did nothing but hurt her. She wasn’t letting him get away with that. He was a pathetic, power-hungry child throwing a tantrum. She was the princess of the Spartans.

“I’m going to torture him,” Fay said. “Just like he did to me.”