Chapter Twenty-nine

Fay had been wanted by the law for ten weeks. Edward Montgomery had been wanted for three months. Both of them had spent the last four weeks hunting each other but having no way to do it other than wandering around the city and having to run every time a cop or oblivious citizen put hands on them. It had been easy since Pluto wanted the two out and running, but Edward didn’t know what he was going to do if the gang lord changed his mind. Every few days, one of them would find a newspaper article giving them just enough information about the other to make them scream in rage, but not enough to actually find each other. Edward Montgomery has been spotted in Welitzer Park but disappeared soon after; Fenella ‘Fay’ Burgess is confirmed alive, seen during a street shooting orchestrated by the Hell-Chasers.

                Scott was either dead or barely alive. Seeing cops on the street had started to become more and more of a frequent occurrence as the public grew more worried about the two convicted serial killers on the loose. Usually, serial killers were like ants in Hillborough, but these ones were just especially destructive. Neither of them would be able to keep it up for much longer, and Edward was running out of ideas. The Hell-Chasers didn’t have any known bases. Edward had no way of knowing what Fay would even look like after the months since he had last seen her. He had been surviving on the few hundred dollars he had in his pocket, and most of it was spent on bribing smaller gang bosses for fruitless tips trying to find Fay. Hiding in alleys to sleep, he dreamed of finding Fay and killing her. He had talked so much before about making her truly pay for what she did, but after all of his time searching and everything he lost, he just wanted it all to be over. He was starving since eating was no longer a priority. In anywhere but Hillborough, it was the middle of spring and the sun would be shining. Instead, it had rained and snowed over the past weeks and he could do nothing but drape his hood over his head and keep moving. A few times, he had seen someone from behind who only slightly resembled Fay, and he screamed and ran to prevent himself from throttling that person just to see if it would even slightly satisfy the burning in his chest.

                He was at the edge of sanity. There was a hole bored into his body where his stomach once was in a faraway universe that he could barely remember. The cold had set his flesh on fire and he hadn’t felt it since. Was it still there? It didn’t seem like it was stopping. He had started counting the reasons why he needed to erase Fay from the face of the earth, and then started explaining them all away just so that the other side of him would close his eyes. I would have ended up in prison even if she hadn’t burned down that house. So what if she burned down a house? It’s just a house. Mother doesn’t even need one anymore. Scott’s probably dead. It’s not my fault if he isn’t�"I just didn’t know. Gravestones are just symbolic. Father wouldn’t care much. All of the crimes she’s committed against this city alongside the Spartans�"she probably only killed a few people. No one even remembers their names, probably.

                No, he thought. That one memory of himself sitting in a courtroom doing what was right�"that kept him going. He was an attorney. He was nothing if he didn’t do what was right. She had taken everything he had and she was hell-bent on continuing if he didn’t stop her. Fay was just a drug-addled sociopath so bursting with sadness that it leaked out onto others. He was more than her. He was better than her, so he should be able to kill her.

                Then one day, he spotted his salvation walking around on the street holding a bag of groceries. He had been so hell-bent on seeing Fay that he almost missed the next best person; practically the handle of a leash that Fay was tied to. Once it clicked in his mind who he had just seen, he ran after her so ecstatically that he let himself be seen. It was only a passing glance and his appearance had changed so much that he didn’t think he was recognized. If he was, she evidently didn’t care.

                He followed her home. During the two days he had staked out the house he tracked her back to, no one but her ever entered or left. There weren’t ever any cars in the driveway. The only thing that concerned him was that it was so close to where Fay’s and his mother’s old houses were�"just down the street. He could see the remnants of his mother’s house from the driveway. The city hadn’t done anything but section it off and clean it up a bit.

                He wanted to wait for her to open the door, but it was taking too long and he wanted it all to end too badly. The most he could stand was waiting until night when she was most likely asleep. Hairpins were among the few things he had left, along with a single handgun and something like a hundred dollars. His hands were shaking so much that opening the door took appallingly longer than it did before�"long enough for someone to see and report him if it all lined up. To whatever end, good or bad, it didn’t.

                Standing on his heels, he made his way into the doorway and down the hall to check all of the bedrooms. The second room he checked was the one she was in. She had obviously not been in the house for long, but there was already a Scottish tapestry along the wall of the living room. She had heard him coming in and had sat up in her bed, but it was too late to do anything. She had been asleep for too long.

                She stopped blinking when she saw him come in. Even with the gun in his hand and the creases on his face, she recognized him, even though it took a few seconds. She took a shallow, short breath and finally said, with an air-shattering gasp, “Edward?”

                “Do you know what your daughter has become?” Edward asked, speaking up to her.

                She didn’t look scared or surprised, even though she could have been. Edward couldn’t remember anything about her other than her being Fay’s mother. That would make it easier for him.

                All she did was nod. He wasn’t happy with that answer. He didn’t speak or move until she squeezed a “yes” out of her throat.

                Edward nodded back. “Would you die so she could be brought to justice?”

                She said again, her voice clear and loud, “Yes.”

                “Thank you.”

                He wouldn’t have stopped if she said otherwise, but he was thinking of himself in the long run. He’d be able to look back and perhaps convince himself that he wasn’t a bad person for killing her. She didn’t have time to react before he pulled his gun out of his pocket and shot her between the eyes.

                It was the only way he could think to draw Fay out of the dark. Mrs. Burgess was most likely in Hillborough because of her ex-husband’s death�"not that it mattered anymore. The cops would find the body and put it in the news. He was positive that she was keeping an eye on it, waiting for any lead she could find. Something like ‘EMILIA BURGESS FOUND DEAD’ would be printed on the front cover of a paper or rolled across the bottom of a television screen and Fay would take it as a private message from him. In no time, she would come running to the house with whatever weapons or trap she had ready, and he’d be waiting with his handgun ready to kill her.