So, I'm back unusually quickly, but I would really appreciate some extra reviews because I could use something to cheer me up a bit right now. My grandfather just had a small stroke and my grandmother's really worried, even if he's mostly fine and the right side of his face is sagging a bit and he's back from the hospital, but I'm still worried and they live in another city so I can't just come and visit them as easily as I'd like to.
Chapter forty-four
...4 January, 1894...
Andrei had a bad feeling as to why someone was suddenly knocking on his office door right after year four was supposed to have finished their PE lesson.
The teachers had all been informed about how Mustang was having his first PE lesson after the accident, and so they had all decided to have given Mustang a bit more space than usual. To be oblivious to any sort of absentmindedness that the boy may have had during his first four lessons of the day.
And it was why Andrei and the other teachers had decided to have chipped in on a certain special edition of a trilogy about four precocious teens who had gone on an adventure to stop an evil corporation that was poisoning the local water supplies. It had originally been the school nurse's idea, in terms of finding some sort of book for Andrei to turn into an assignment. But then Andrei had seen the advert in the papers and had told his colleagues about it, and they had all agreed to it having been the perfect thing.
Especially as Andrei had read them himself when the final volume had first been released as they had been some of the books that Maksim had brought with him when Andrei had been learning Amestrian. He had enjoyed those books tremendously and this year marked the fifteenth anniversary since the first book had been published. And as they dealt with riddles, social issues and ethics, they were brilliant for making assignments for Amestrian lessons as they could be turned into both essays and several forms of creative writing. So it was a very sound thing, in many ways, what with how Mustang was in constant need of something more challenging during his classes.
The reason for it have been special edition was that, due to its anniversary, it came with a board game that came in a special box decorated as an old book.
Basically, the thing was both expensive, and yet pretty neat and a small and childish part of Andrei was just a tiny bit jealous.
And so they had of course made sure that Mustang hadn't read those books already by talking briefly to Mustang's grandparents, also so as to have given them a bit of a heads-up about how the headmaster was about to turn Mustang into an example of how his scars didn't affect his worth at all. Mr and Mrs Mustang had thanked Andrei profusely, but Andrei honestly felt like that had been the least that the school could do for the boy, considering how the headmaster was an unfeeling prick who lived in his bubble of self-assuredness. He hadn't said that last part, of course. And another reason for it to have been a good thing to give Mustang something brand new and a bit more expensive and usual, was that his grandparents usually had to refrain from buying such things. Georgina Mustang had retired early after she had lost her hearing as she had worked as a nurse, so money was a bit stretched because they also wished for the chance to leave their grandson with as much money as possible come the time that they were gone. Which meant that the only reason that they made things work out, was that they were renting out the house that had been the youngest Mustang's childhood home. They hadn't been able to get themselves to have sold the house, so their goal was to have Roy Mustang move in once the time came for the boy to want to move out of his grandparents' flat again. Christine Mustang had only been renting a flat herself, so she had never had too much money, and what she had possessed, had been inherited by her nephew.
Which had apparently included about five hundred books.
And the boy's biggest dream was to have a large basement library.
Andrei couldn't say that he blamed him much.
And so the youngest Mustang thankfully hadn't read those books, also because of the way that they were for ages twelve and above.
Andrei had assured his colleagues that the age limit had been based on the way that one of the characters had a mildly colourful language when under stress and that it had generally just been because of the way that that the author had used more advanced words and phrases than what people below that age would usually have possessed. And so it would have taken some of the fun out of it when the younger readers would have needed to look things up a lot. Plus, ages twelve and up meant that the parents wouldn't be reading a bedtime story that would force them to swear to their kids.
Basically, harmless.
Harmless, and very interesting and exciting because Andrei knew that Mustang's vocabulary was more than capable of handling the words that were to be found, considering how one of the boy's favourite words was 'grimalkin' and he had approached Andrei right after a lesson shortly before end of term to discuss the word 'hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia' as he had been interested in having heard what the man who was teaching Amestrian had thought about the word for fear of long words.
Their subsequent conversation had made it very clear to Andrei that with the right amount of encouragement and reading materials, the boy would be able to be moved up another year before he graduated this school.
And Andrei was more than happy to do so because he wanted to see that boy reach his vast potential.
...Wanted to see that when Mustang wasn't at risk of being taken hostage by Irma. And that meant getting that kid through year seven as soon as possible.
And so it had been Andrei who had been chosen to be the one to give the boy the box set as Andrei had been the one who would be giving Mustang the assignments based on it and had been the one to know the books better than the others.
Which meant that he wasn't exactly cheered on by the way that the knocks on his office door hinted at it being a nervous student.
...And with it being Mikhail's birthday, it was easy to put two and two together, and he instantly turned towards his windows behind him and quickly drew the curtains shut so that nobody could see him from the outside. Then he walked over to the door to his office and opened it to find a very nervous Quentin Ferris who had obviously been running as quickly as possible. "I was told by Mr Davies to ask you to come to the PE hall, sir. He has another class coming there in just fifteen minutes and Xander Benson has been teasing Roy a lot and now Roy's locked himself inside one of the wardrobe toilets and Xander's being held back by Mr Davies and so he asked me to ask you for a bit of assistance because you haven't got any lessons for the rest of the day," Ferris explained rapidly.
Andrei swore inwardly. Mikhail had taken it too far. Birthdays had always been special, and today was his tenth, so he really should have been expecting it that he'd be going for detention, rather than a quarter of an hour's talking-to. "I see," he said as he walked back over to his desk and quickly scribbled down a message on his notepad, tore the page off and folded it. "Give this to Mrs Woodson and be quick so that it can go a bit more unnoticed by the rest of the class."
"Yes, Mr Witkinson!" Ferris said with a nod and walked off quickly.
Andrei sighed heavily and shoved the cardboard box inside his satchel and strode out of the office and down the two staircases and through the grounds until he came upon the desired building. And so he opened the door and found the twenty-eight-year-old Norman Davies standing there with his arms crossed, his blonde, curly hair reaching his shoulders, and with his usual bright red gym shorts with their white hems and with two white stripes along the sides, and his white T-shirt showing his above-average amount of muscle, but not in an unnerving way, followed by his red headband. And he also had his whistle, of course, and was all in all a man who had a very firm idea of what a PE teacher should look like.
...Namely one who was ready to both run anywhere at any time should someone need him to and to be able to dive into a pool without needing to do anything about shedding any clothes, because he was always prepared for everything.
He even kept a small bag of plasters in the right pocket of his shorts, and antiseptic wipes in the other, as well as some paper tissues.
But he was good at his job, and that was basically all that counted.
And right now, Mikhail was sitting in his uniform with his satchel next to him and looking down with his arms crossed and looked thoroughly pissed off.
And wasn't looking up at Andrei because they both knew that there was a significant risk of him being unable to keep himself from tears right now because of the date.
"It's not my fault that Mustang's such a crybaby that he can't even handle people looking at his scars..." Mikhail mumbled angrily. "He just wants to be a perfect little hero, and then he goes and locks himself inside the toilet when people tell him what a selfish freak he really is because he wants everyone to like him and he gets away with it because he's the teacher's pet... He chose what he wanted to be, and he can't expect people to think he's popular when he's a freaky little brat who can't handle it when people aren't like the teachers who all praise him... He needs to learn what real life's like 'cos all he knows are grownups praising him for how good and wonderful he is, and when us other students remind him that he's not perfection on two legs, we just need to 'shut up about things we don't understand'... He thinks he's so special and brave when all he does is reading and whining and now he's crying because I told him that he isn't perfect when he looks like that... So what does he do next when I tell him the truth? He goes and locks himself inside the toilets to get all the grownups to praise him and encourage him and tell them how wrong those who say that he isn't perfect are... And so you come running to his aid, Mr Witkinson, just so that your star pupil can keep manipulating-"
Andrei cut him off. "I'll be back in ten minutes and then you'll be doing lines in my office until four o'clock, Benson," he said sternly. He couldn't get himself to listen to more of this, also because he could tell from his words that those bastards had been harassing him since he'd last talked to him. But, then again, Andrei hadn't had the opportunity to actually speak with his son rather than Xander Benson since he'd been visiting for New Year's Eve. And then it had only been between six p.m till one a.m. under the guise of the Bensons having been celebrating New Year's with some friends.
"Why do you let yourself get pushed about by a snotty little eight-year-old brat?! Where's your pride, Mr Witkinso-?!"
"That makes it five o'clock, Benson, now I suggest you stop talking like that, or I'll be asking your parents for a meeting," Andrei told him sternly. He was getting terrified by how much Mikhail was pushing his luck, and in front of another teacher, no less. Something was very wrong here.
He saw the way that Mikhail's left hand instinctively squeezed his upper right arm, and his stomach churned. "Sure, Mr Witkinson... I'll just be waiting here for you, then," he said grumpily.
"Yes, Benson, you will." He then looked to his colleague with a nod.
"It's the toilet to the left, Matthew," Norman said, looking slightly relieved, though still strict and a bit irked by it all, but mostly just sorry for Mustang. His eyes were silently asking about the box set, and Andrei nodded again before walking over to the wardrobe and opening the door.
The scene that met him wasn't the most encouraging. There were wet footprints that went directly from the showers all the way up to the left toilet door, save the slight detour to on one of the benches where the entirety of what was undoubtedly Mustang's clothes lay, save the boxers and uniform sweater.
And so Andrei walked over and knocked on the door. "It's Mr Witkinson, please open up, Mustang, there's nobody else here and I've got something for you."
There were a few seconds of nothing happening, and then the door was unlocked and a tearful face was looking up at him from half a metre down. The boy was only wearing his boxers and sweater and his towel was lying on the floor. His hair was dishevelled by having been dried clean by the towel, but without having been straightened out afterwards. "I-I'm sorry, Mr Witkinson... I didn't mean to cause so much trouble... I-I lost track of time."
Andrei sighed and knelt down so that he could pull out the cardboard box that had arrived in the mail three days ago from his satchel. "The other teachers and I decided that what with the school's motto being that everyone's equal, you should at least get to have something a bit more fun when your students don't think you are. Otherwise, our school could be seen as a bit hypocritical when the equality between students that we've got as our school motto leaves you with a substantial amount of students making you lose that equal worth. So we're making up for that by showing you how at least the staff doesn't think any the worse of you for what you went through, because we also believe that you ought to have an equal emotional worth, so we can't just leave you behind without something to make up for what your classmates take away from you... But just don't tell the headmaster because this is more or less a semi-rebellion against how he's undoubtedly soon going to be using you as an example of the school's equality... So the staff making up for the headmaster's not... always too clever ways, because most of us believe that uniqueness isn't such a bad idea to add into the equation." He held the box out to the young boy, the box measuring eighteen centimetres times thirty centimetres times twenty centimetres and it was all in all a good thing that Andrei's satchel was roomy and that Mustang had a school bag rather than a satchel because of how he kept carrying all those additional books with him. Plus, the cardboard box was of course a bit larger than the contents, though.
Mustang just stared at him in something between fear and gratitude, and Andrei shook his head slightly as he spoke. "And don't worry, you won't get into trouble for locking yourself inside here like this." He reached inside his satchel again and produced a pair of scissors to cut through the tape keeping the box together. "So what you're going to do from here is to open this, enjoy it, and then I'll be making you several assignments based on it later on."
The boy looked at the box and knelt down himself and took the scissors from Andrei, and then carefully opened the box, only to pause.
Andrei gave him a small, but encouraging smile and handed him one of the keys to the group rooms. "Now I suggest that you grab that first volume and sit yourself down in room 241, it has a couch, and then you just give the key to one of the teachers over at the teacher's lounge come the end of the school day, and then we'll discuss what sort of assignment you'll be getting during lunch tomorrow. So you need to get dressed because there's another class coming here in about eight minutes, while I'll be having a word with Benson, he's already told me the basics of what he said to you, so he'll be doing lines in my office until five, should there be something that you need to see me about. So go and enjoy those books, I personally think they're brilliant."
It was ten minutes later that Andrei stepped inside his office and locked the door, and had Mikhail attack him in a hug before Andrei had even had the time to turn around properly.
He felt tears building in his own eyes at the sound of his child sobbing halfway with misery on his tenth birthday. At the fact that Mikhail had gone as far as to have purposely got himself detention for over three hours, just to stay away from his mother on his birthday. Just to get to finally spend some time alone with his father.
Andrei began stroking up and down his back. "Mikhail, you can't do things like that, that's not what I agreed to," he said sternly. "This was Mustang's first day with PE after his family died and that has nothing to do with praise and you know it." He hated this, but he still had a responsibility to his son as his father as his mother was obviously just encouraging his destructive behaviour to further push him into mixing with a bad crowd. "I know that you wanted detention, but that is not how you do it."
He found his resolve breaking when Mikhail began wailing into his light yellow waistcoat, because those were his first words as himself to his son on his tenth birthday. And so he knelt down and picked his boy up in his arms and sat down at his office chair instead, Mikhail sobbing into his chest as he sat on his father's lap. Andrei felt his tears beginning to stream down his cheeks in full and took a few shaky breaths before he spoke. "I've bought a pair of chocolate cupcakes from the bakery and two bottles of that apple fizzy drink that you love," he told him softly as he kissed the top of Mikhail's head. "Now please tell me just what those bastards have said to you to make you act like this..." Andrei was worried. Really, really worried.
And ready to do a fair bit of negotiating with Irma.
"Irma's been trying to turn me against you, Dad... They all are..." Mikhail whispered shakily, choking back his sobs to the best of his ability. "They've been hounding me about how... how useless you are and how traitorous you are and that I can't trust that you love me when you didn't even trust your wife to love you enough to keep us safe, and would rather just leave her thinking that you were dead... All because of Uncle Maksim sacrificing himself for you... That you let yourself get controlled because you're so soft that you'll leave people that you supposedly love behind if someone does something for you that means that you don't have to face up to your flaws because you just run away..." He swallowed hard. "That if you feel like someone's affection for you is wavering just a bit, then you leave them and that that was why you took me with you because Uncle Maksim showed you that he loved you so much, and that you could thereby also raise me all on your own so that I'd be your loyal little confidence-booster."
Andrei paled. "You know that that is just them trying to mess with you to hurt me further, right?" he asked shakily, absolutely terrified.
"Of course I know, Dad! If it had been like that, then you would just have run away from all of this and have left me behind to start a new family to make it easier for you! You're letting yourself get put through hell just for me! If you were so morally corrupt like she says, then you'd have long since decided that I wasn't worth the effort!" Mikhail pressed himself further into Andrei's chest. "I just hate listening to it, 'cos sometimes it gives me nightmares... And they keep calling you a freak... And Mustang's acting a lot like you, so of course he's a freak too! And I hate her, Dad! I hate her because she won't let me be a freak like my Dad!"
"So, to sum it all up, boys, being a freak isn't such a bad thing if one only thinks about it in the right way," Damien finished after recounting his story. There were just the three of them in the living room now.
Al just looked at him, feeling tears building in his eyes. Damien had had it horrible for the first twelve years of his life, and he had been the same age as Al was himself when he had sat there on his father's lap. He had wept about how much he had wanted to have been a freak with the one that he had loved more than everything else.
"Because being a freak gives you an opportunity to actually find those that are freaks too, and find those that will actually stand by you when others will back down..." Damien told them gently, before pointing at Ed's stump with a slight nod. "So, in a way, losing your arm also means that you'll have an opportunity to find people who don't see why there's something wrong with you as a person... See it as a sort of highly portable polygraph when it comes to telling who to rely on and who you should stay away from because they don't want to be freaks with you... After all, it makes it a lot easier to tell who likes how you are as a person and who also likes the way your mind works because they can see past the stump."
Brother just sat there, for once seeming lost for words.
And so Damien continued. "And I think that your mom would have liked to hear that you were using it as a way to turn what Barry did into something good... Because she was an extremely kind woman who would have seen past the stump too... So I believe that you would benefit far more from seeing it from her perspective because it is a very good quality that you have inherited from her, rather than just view it as something that Barry stole from you."
Then a slightly mischievous glint reached his eyes. "You know, rebel a little by twisting his actions into something good, just like I did with making 'freak' into a compliment."
"But changing bad into good is also why she was so kind that she let Hohenheim break her heart and leave her!" Brother blurted, tears in his eyes.
Damien sighed heavily at that. "Ed, if there is one thing that one ought to treasure, it's the kindness in those around us... Your mom was obviously oozing of it, and it's not their fault that people take advantage of it when people are so kind..."
"Because we're otherwise blaming Mom for being so?" Al suddenly asked, feeling tears beginning to go down his cheeks.
A soft sigh and a nod was the answer that they were given.
Realisation hit Al at that. "And if we do, then we won't be able to truly move forwards?"
Damien smiled gently. "In my experience, then yes... But you need to remember that there's a difference between running away and moving forwards. When you do the latter, then you build it on what has happened before... After all, berating things for what had happened and is now over isn't going to get you anywhere. It won't change things. It won't undo them..." His voice was soft, and his eyes were carrying the look of someone who had found that out for themselves and had reached that conclusion from their own experiences, rather than just having read it from a textbook.
"I still see Mom's body every time I look myself in the mirror..." Brother said quietly, his eyes getting slightly shinier than before. "A lot of the time I imagine Barry standing there and just laughing... I remember Barry telling me how he'd like to chop me up just like Mom... I can't..." There was suddenly a lot of tiredness in Brother's voice. "I can't turn that on its head just through positive thinking... I can't just deny the truth of how it's gone because our stepfather wanted to 'chop us up into little tiny pieces'... Because Mom's not here, she's never gonna be here again... He took her away and he chopped off my arm and I can hear the screams and I can't stop it... Every time I look myself in the mirror, there's a guy that we trusted who wants us dead just for the heck of it. He let us down and he killed Mom and I can't just... He wanted to kill me... He was supposed to take care of us..."
Something happened to Ed at that moment, it was like he was forgetting that Al was next to him. Because suddenly everything just came spilling out in a sort of desperate show of frustration. "I remember being carried on his back, dammit! I-I used to hug the guy! I used to laugh and joke and bump his fist! He took us camping! And then suddenly he just... Just snapped and slaughtered Mom and chopped my arm off for fun! And how can I be expected not to see that every time I look at where my arm should have been?! I don't... He left us, dammit! He let us down in one of the worst ways possible and he didn't care! He just laughed! He laughed and he laughed and it's gone! There was screaming and pain and blood and fear and Mom was screaming and Al was screaming and I was screaming and he was just laughing! Laughing and laughing and laughing! He was laughing and I was technically bleeding to death and terrified and I was in agony and yet it all seems like a really bad nightmare now! Like it wasn't actually real! Because I don't even remember the pain! I don't remember anything but the knowledge of how it was pure agony! And how can Mom be dead?! She's always been there, but now she isn't and I just can't get myself to face it because we humans are such stupid creatures of habit! She's dead and buried and I lost my arm! And Barry was just laughing! Mom can't be dead! I know she is, but my mind doesn't wanna face it! That she's just gone! Just like that! And the universe doesn't even care! The kindest person in the world who meant so much to us just... just poof! Gone! Because that's what death means! Barry just took her from us! He took Mom and he took my arm and all he did was laugh and tell us how he wanted to chop us up! To end our lives too! And now my arm's missing and I'm not getting it back and it doesn't feel real! And that's what I see in the mirror! I see the way that Barry stole so much from us because he let us down! He let us down, and all he did about it was laugh! Laugh and laugh and laugh! He went from treating us like his sons to treating us like we weren't anything to him other than flesh and meat to chop up! There's a hell of a lot of broken trust and promises that have replaced my arm!"
Al felt his stomach clench violently at his brother's words. He obviously hadn't spoken to anyone about this. Not before now. Not to this extent.
He barely kept himself from breaking down into sobs.
Damien sighed softly and gently again after a few seconds with real pain in his features. "Then I have a second suggestion for you... Ed... Because your stump is also a sign of something entirely else... Because, if you remember, the one who saved you is the father who chose you... In a way, it's a symbol of how you've got yourself a father who wants you alive. Who is choosing to be there for you. Who wants you in their life. Who wants to be responsible for the two of you. Who wants, no matter what, to have it official that he cares about you. He could easily have chosen to just be able to let go by not having any other role than your foster mother's boyfriend and boss, but he's damned well claiming you for his own... And that started the moment that he stopped you from bleeding out..."
Ed looked down at that and began crying silently.
Damien kept explaining, however. "And if there's one thing that I've learnt from my experiences with Roy Mustang, it's that he's loyal to a staggering extent and that once he puts his mind to something, the only people who can stop him are the police, and barely even then. He's fiercely protective and, judging by what you two have told me about him, he loves you. He wants to get married for you. He wants to adopt you, and there's no way that he's letting go."
A tiny smile made it to Al's lips as a thought struck him. "He handcuffed Barry to the radiator and claimed us for his own."
Damien was about to reply, when a round of familiar knocks came on the door, though they were just a bit more urgent than usual. Al got up from his seat, Maes having made a sort of deal about how he would be knocking in a certain way that consisted of a total of eight knocks making up a small melody.
Al paused at the sight of how Maes wasn't alone, but accompanied by a girl in her mid-teens. Her hair was honey-coloured and she had a blanket draped around her, but her blue-grey eyes weren't looking at anything, it seemed. Completely unresponsive. Just being guided by Maes.
"We've got a bit of an emergency and could really use Nanna's ex-nurse skills and a good child psychologist who is used to tricky cases... And I need to inform Roy and Superintendent Grumman of just what I've done and fill you in on the case, Mr Fitzgerald, but first we need Nanna to help her get a shower and some clean clothes... They're roughly the same size, after all... Ed, Al, I'd like you to go fetch Nanna right now and then stay out of this until I get to hear with Roy just how much you're allowed to know."
Maes looked at Mr Fitzgerald with a slightly nervous feeling in his stomach as Nanna locked the bathroom door behind herself and the unidentified girl. Superintendent Grumman had told him about how Damien was one of the best at his field and that he wasn't unfamiliar with working alongside the police.
Though letting the man in on the exact nature of this case was a risky thing when he didn't know the man at all.
"Before you say anything else, I should let you know that I'm Mikhail Antonov," the man said, and Maes paused. "We didn't go back to Drachma fourteen years ago and were instead placed in witness protection... If there's one thing I'm good at, it's keeping secrets."
Maes's eyes went wide. "...Does Roy know?"
"Why do you think they sent me in the first place? He's intruding upon Dad's retirement location just about now, so Grumman figured that he'd might as well send me too here, also because I knew Trisha... But more to the point, who's the girl and what's going on here?"
Maes was struggling to take in the information, though part of him was thrilled for Roy's sake. He had noticed his friend's slightly off behaviour for the past two weeks, but he hadn't mentioned any of it because of how it might just have interfered with the case if Maes had blatantly pointed it out and had thereby distracted Roy from the investigation.
"I've basically just kidnapped a girl because about thirty minutes ago, Grumman told me that Roy now had a theory about the way that a lot of the station might very well be involved with his case. I found her about a two minute's walk away from the station twenty minutes ago and she's an eye witness to who the murderer is, I'll explain more after I've told Roy just what I've now done because you'll be able to hear what I say anyway."
And so Maes strode over to the phone and dialled the number for Rockbell Automail.
He found Roy picking up the phone within a few seconds, though his voice was croaky enough for it to be a good idea to make sure. "Hello?"
"Roy, that's you, right?" Maes was more than a little stressed.
"Yes, what's going on, Hughes?"
"There's been another murder, but it's a very complicated situation... Because we've got your killer killing another killer and then marking the first killer, who is another of the Church of Eternity's members, as 'ENVY' in the same location as the first killer killed the first victim, and so there's a double murder by two different killers, one of which is now dead and a murder victim," Maes explained in frustration, barely bothering to use a wider vocabulary just to really show Roy just how complicated the situation truly was. Almost as if he wanted his best friend to join in on the headache that the whole thing was giving him.
"...That's a new one," Roy said, and Maes could hear the frown on his face.
"But that's not all of it. The first victim was a young girl who was decapitated with a meat cleaver, but she was accompanied by a girl in her mid-teens whom your killer must have assumed to have been dead because she went into shock by being shoved against the wall and being sprayed by the blood of the young girl that I'm guessing that she was babysitting... She's unresponsive and doesn't speak or do anything but stare and blink and letting us lead her around... I thought she was dead at first until I noticed her blinking. She was sitting there with the first victim's head in her lap and she has most likely seen your murderer as they killed the one who butchered the girl."
"WHAT?!"
Maes felt partially like throwing up. "Because of what you told Grumman about how several corrupt cops might be involved, I couldn't bring her somewhere where she would be exposed because of someone abusing their position, so the station was out of the question. A mental institution might very well pose the same sort of problem because we can't exactly tell the staff that they're not allowed to let cops in, so now I've gone and basically kidnapped her after one of the female PCs helped her out of her dress for evidence. And after the paramedics were able to confirm that she hadn't been harmed, I wrapped my jacket around her and one of the blankets from the ambulance and brought her with me to the hotel room so that Nanna could look after her as she used to be a nurse, as you know, and Grumman had told me that one of the psychologists had been invited to stay a little longer after having been asked by the boys because they were opening up a little... I was just buying a fizzy drink during my lunch break when I heard someone screaming and it turned out to have been the one who found the bodies. What with the hotel only being five minutes away from the station, I brought her with me here, also because there was supposedly a highly skilled child psychologist who has often worked together with the police before."
"Good thinking, Hughes... Did any of the girls have ID on them?"
"No, which means that we can't exactly admit her to a mental institution right now anyway. The first victim was an Ishbalan I'd put somewhere between five and eight, and she was carrying a teddy bear in public... And Mr Fitzgerald gave me a brief introduction of himself before I phoned you. Ed and Al have only seen the girl and I sent them away to their room so they don't know what's really going on here. Nan's gonna give her something to wear, they're roughly the same size, and Havoc's gone out to buy some toiletries. I'll have someone come up here to take some pictures of her face once she's cleaned up and looking a bit more like she probably normally would."
"Dammit, talk with Superintendent Grumman and tell him what's going on, Damien's obviously got some information out of this already if he's in the room with you and has heard everything that you just told me... And I've got a theory as to the reason behind the killings, and I have to say that this third one only supports it... Because I've got a strong feeling that I'm meant to be victim number eight for being the 'ultimate sinner' or similar, and that the killer's toying with me in the 'how smart do you look now, huh?' way... After all, now we've got ourself a murder on Riza's first day of work, the second upon your arrival, and a third one while I'm out of the city right after I got engaged and started the adoption process, just to really make it clear that I'm useless. There's more, but I'd like to discuss that with you once I get back. But try to get the girl talking, if we've got an eye witness who was close enough to see our killer in the act, then there's a substantial amount of evidence all of a sudden."
Maes just stood there, frozen at the prospect of this being centred around Roy. But his best friend's gut feeling was seldom wrong, and especially if Riza didn't have any objections to his theory. Also because Roy's mind was still able to see connections despite his obvious mental exhaustion, based on the hoarseness of his voice from what could only be a lot of newly shed tears. "Good to hear that you have at least got something out of your trip."
"Yes, I definitely have, but the reasoning is so weak that it had to come to me in a dream for me to even make it up in the first place... But I'm pretty sure I'm right, but barely have any evidence to prove it so far... I've just got a series of vague connections and that's it, so calling it evidence is basically me just being self-indulgent. Now go phone Grumman and tell him what's going on and then ask him to phone me once you've finished with the conversation, we've got ourselves one hell of a mess to figure out."
CallMeWaffle: Thank you so much! I really hope you enjoyed this chapter too, I got a lot of inspiration from your review :)