It is early morning, and Mello is quietly sipping coffee when the beeping begins.

A-13.

It's not the first time the Knights have raised the alarm, but when Mello zooms in on A-13, he knows it'll be the last.

- he was tall, and kind of thin, and he wearing this black coat and his hair was kind of long, too - it was really dark, and I couldn't see very much, but it was kind of brownish, blackish, and he had all these scars on his face -

Well.

So was the man on the screen.

Who, standing in front of the body, slowly took out a small piece of paper and let it flutter to the ground.

Mello hesitates, wonders a moment about danger and friendship and withholding information for the good of all before realizing that Matt was already up, the light of the computer screens flashing blue on his goggles and the determination in his eyes.

Mello's shift was over. Theirs was begun.

While Matt presses on Mello the bulletproof vests he had bought from musty stores in back alleys, Mello checks his Makarovs. They're loaded, of course - have been loaded for four nights of trading shifts and false alarms.

Only this wasn't a false alarm.

With the reprogrammed GPS in the car and two phones insistently beeping Sully's position, they head out.

"He's close," Mello mutters, when the dot that is Sanders Sully is scarcely two blocks away from their car. "We should get out."

Matt hesitates a moment, then nods, turning off the engine as Mello deactivates the tracking devices. With Sully so close, they only be another signal of their coming.

Speaking of which -

"What the hell are you doing?" Matt hisses, eyes outraged as Mello slips off his jacket and then his bulletproof vest.

"It'd be too bulky, too obvious," Mello replies, putting on his jacket again. "Yours you can hide under your clothes; mine, I can't."

"Mello, you absolute idiot -"

"Sh," Mello says, placing one finger on his lips as his eyes darted quickly around. "Sully's close. We can't attract attention."

Matt opens his mouth, as if about to protest, then closes it again.

The fire in his eyes remains, however.

They get out of the car. Matt lights a cigarette. They wait, then walk. Mello saunters, whistling slightly off-tune as he does. Matt doesn't. He glowers.

In any other circumstances, Matt's utter inability at acting causal would have been funny - if it weren't for, well, the fact that they were chasing a deranged serial killer.

As it was, it was now only slightly terrifying.

Mello tried to ignore it, though, tried to ignore Matt's anger even as it slowly coagulated into the same nervousness Mello was feeling underneath the surface.

Sully was close, very, very close.

But. Calm. Relaxed.

Mello could see, why, now, Sully had chosen A-13. It was deserted; no shops, no restaurants, no people. Only run-down houses and half-finished construction projects, already decrepit and swaying slightly in the morning air.

But if there weren't any people, Mello thought, suddenly, then - it's possible -

A trap?

Mello glanced quickly at Matt, who was lighting another cigarette with shaky fingers.

No, Mello decided, Matt didn't think so. Had not yet had the terrible thought that perhaps Zodiac had planned for one of them to be the next victim. Besides, it was a preposterous idea, one born of too much coffee and too little sleep.

But even if that were the case, Mello would make sure the cocky little bastard that was Zodiac would fail. He'd promised Di that, after all.

"Hey, Mels," Matt said quietly, carefully taking out his cigarette as they walked, "don't try to be too obvious, but I think our guy's on your right."

Mello nodded, then - slowly, ever so slowly - glanced to his right.

Only one glance. But it told him all he needed.

From Di's description and Felice's rare photos and sketches, he knew it was Sanders Sully.

Matt stopped, looked at Mello expectantly.

"Keep walking," Mello hissed under his breath, "and for God's sake, try to act a little more normal, will you?"

"Kind of hard to do under the circumstances, Mel," Matt whispered back, but he took another cigarette out and lit it, breathed in deeply.

Calm. Causal. Relaxed.

Walk on, walk on.

The man on the other side paused, stopped.

Okay. Okay. Calm. Relaxed. Causal, even as you reach in for your pocket, feel the trigger in your fingers -

Mello turned and shot.

And so did Sully.

Lights and sound broke through the morning air.

Two gunshots. That was all.

And then Sully crumbled, and Mello - sprawled across the pavement where he'd dived when he'd heard the gunshot, gravel scraping across his palms and face, looked down, and noticed the blood running down his leg.

"We're calling an ambulance," Matt said.

Mello shook his head, slowly - one hand holding onto the wall behind him - hobbled to his feet.

"Police first."

"Goddamn it, Mello, you're bleeding all over the pavement -"

"Police first," Mello repeated. "We need to get Sully in custody first."

Matt glared at him for one second, then took out two phones from his pocket. "You call the police - I'll call an ambulance."

Nodding, Mello made his way over to Matt and took one of the phones, one hand still holding onto the wall. Carefully taking it off, he began to dial -

Only, with both hands off the wall, to fall, catching himself only moments before falling onto his face.

"Ambulance first," Matt announced.

"Goddamn," Mello muttered, slowly staggering to his feet again, "I told you, Matt, I'm fine -"

"Mello, if you say something about it just being a flesh wound, I swear, I am going to smack you. Shit, the guy could have nicked an artery, you idiot - sit down, Mello, you're only going to make that leg bleed more if you keep on trying to stand on it, sit down. I'm calling an ambulance."

"Police first," Mello muttered weakly, sliding to sit down again.

But Matt was already dialing.

Fourteen hours later, Sanders Sully wakes in a hospital ward.

He opens his eyes. Looks right, left.

Sits up.

The monitor above his head begins its preliminary alarms. He unplugs it.

IVs swing, clang dully against metal as he stands up, and he unplugs them, too, and pulls the duct-taped needles from his veins.

And then he looks around.

Nothing. Nothing, except -

In one of the drawers, a pair of errant scissors, undoubtedly left by a scatter-brained nurse.

Experimentally, Sully opens them, closes them. Once, twice.

They were fairly dull, but Sully had always been known for his creativity.

An hour later, noticing that the monitor for room 112 was black, the prison nurse slowly sighs, and takes her pair of keys to the newest inmate's room.

Cautiously, she opens the door -

And screams.

In the morning, they will report the news: will condense it to bare facts, iron the truth into bare, bloodless, bland sentences.

Now, though, there is none of that mercy. Now, there is only the screaming nurse and Sanders Sully lying on the floor, left arm and right leg sawed off at the roots, a pair of red scissors and a single, white paper on the pristine floor.

I had thought you intelligent, thought you talented. I've been disappointed. In all your searching, you have skipped around it, lost the trail as surely as you have lost me. Or rather, his tool. Complete loyalty I swear to him, and completely he has rewarded me. He will win. You cannot stop him.

S. S.