Update before the end of the world! Hope it's okay, and stay safe on the apocalypse ;)

(also - last chapter, towards the end, for some reason I accidentally wrote Anle as Zeno? It's fixed now, but sorry for any confusion that might have caused orz)


There are maps, now – street maps and building schematics on the counter, on the floor, freshly printed or bought and already highlighted and annotated, already wrinkled from use.

Mello is talking a mile a minute, pacing back and forth and waving his chocolate about back as he figures it out – "it'll be 404 something, that's the room it was in, that's the room Beyond tried to kill him in, we need the street, but it'll be 404" – and there is a purposefulness in his steps now, a brightness in his eyes as he talks and talks, explains theory and plan, an animation in every quick movement and flick of wrist that Matt hadn't seen for several weeks –

And yet, despite all that, Matt wasn't so sure how to feel about it.

Oh, yes, it was nice to see Mello like this again – walking again, talking and thinking and planning again, arrogantly demanding and callous and so very much more alive than the lifeless figure he had been only several hours prior – but, oh just but –

He didn't trust it, that was all.

" – but the street, that's not hard at all, that's easy – it's in the notes, all there under our noses! The notes are a taunt, that's pretty damn obvious, but they're also a code – I mean, what the fuck else could they be? There's no sense in obliquely insulting us, there's no drama in that – no, Zodiac has to be clever, has to dangle the evidence right under our eyes –"

Because, well, even if this was an improvement, even if it was nice to have the Mello he remembered back, Matt knew it couldn't last. It was like adrenaline or amphetamine, volcanic eruption or wildfire – sooner or later, it would have end, burn up and burn out. And then what? And then what?

"– see how the notes change length? They start out short and get long – three sentences, five, seven, eight – and exactly four of them, too. Substantially, there's nothing different really different about the notes – they're all the same parsed insults, the only thing they really differ in is length. And that's because it's not the words that are important, it's the letters –"

Oh, but Matt knew. Matt knew, and that was thing, because he had seen what came after, what was left when the fire had burned through – and it was nothing but ash and ash, sooty dust that slipped through fingers dead and grey.

And this was Mello. Mello, who was all fire and action and life – Mello, who had lived by fire all his life – and who, Matt feared, would die by it.

"– first letter from the first and second sentences of the first note, first from the third and fourth and sentences of the second, the fifth and sixth of the third, and do we have? C-H-U-R-C-H, church. And then you look at the seventh and eighth sentences of the fourth, and that's S-T – Church Street. 404 Church Street, Peterborough. That's where Zodiac will be."

Mello looked up, face excited and expectant, eyes shining with crusader fervor in the dim light.

And Matt looked, saw the fever light in Mello's eyes and the adrenaline in his gaze. And he asked:

"And what you are going to do now?"

And Mello smiled, the light glinting off sharp teeth.

"I'm going to find him. I'm going to find him, and I'm going to capture him, and I'm going to solve this case."

Ah, Matt thought as he sighed inwardly, and so that was that.

He'd been right, then, not to trust it.