~The Lovely Bones~
Edward wrote a letter to me two weeks before I died. I never got a chance to send my reply.
Over the week after my death Edward had spent all his time and energy trying to find me. He had pulled out old murder cases and papers for convicted criminals. He separated the living criminals from the deceases and the ones in jail for the ones who were on the streets. He had gone behind the scenes and associated with some really sketchy people. He fought back whenever someone got on his case for trespassing on 'their' territory, digging a little to deep on fragile topics or for just being a plain old dog of the military. Finally he narrowed it down to one person. Albert Capone.
I wish i could tell Edward that he was wrong, that he should stop this and go back to Al. It was stupid and reckless of him and he was going to get himself killed. But this was his way of coping and I couldn't deny him that. I just wish he could see how lonely Al was, how much he needed his older brother in such a trying time.
Capone was a very dangerous man. He had escaped from jail three times and killed ten times as much. He was very smart and people found him very charming, before they figured out that he was a deranged psychopathic killer that is. He could be doing anything, he had the brains for it, but he chose to kill instead because... he got a high out of it.
When I was younger I knew the world could be a cruel and terrible place, what with my parents meaningless deaths and the irony of Ed and Al loosing even more just to fail in bringing their mother back. But I had never realized it could be so... deranged, until after I was dead.
When Al told Ed about Colonel Mustang's call he went crazy. He had returned to their hotel room in the middle of the night like he always did just to leave before sunrise everyday. Ed shed his coat and tossed it on the couch and went to the sink to pour himself a glass of water which he drank greedily from. When he was finished he turned the tap on again to pour himself another.
"Colonel Mustang called today," Al said wanting to get it out in the open in hopes that Ed would stop his hopeless game of cat and mouse and begin acting like a civilized person again. Ed was very still, the glass gripped tightly in his automail hand. The moments that Al couldn't bring himself to speak stretched on like an eternity. Finally he said it, "They don't think she's going to be found alive." He couldn't bring himself to say my name in the same sentence that would bring the end of me. The sentence in which he finally excepted the fact that I was dead, and I was gone.
What happened next was unexpected even for me from where I watched up in my heaven. The knuckles on his human hand turned white and the glass smashed in his other as he gripped his hand into a fist before he punched it hard against the wall forming a hole that sent the smithereens flying in the hallway on the other side. Next he flung all the dishes off the counter sending them sailing to the floor where they smashed into millions of tiny pieces before he flipped the table sending it flying against the wall breaking it in half.
Al stood in a trance unsure of how to react to all this but he didn't have a chance to. Edward had already gone flying out the door. Al tried to follow but by the time he got outside Ed had already hailed over a cab and was speeding away.
When he finally got out of the cab he found himself walking down the abandoned alleys on the outskirts of Central. He remembered the last conversation he had had with Pinako, four words still stuck with him.
She had called him a week after she settled down in her temporary home in Rush Valley. She didn't waist much time with small talk. Finally Edward told her he had an idea of who had done it.
"What's his name?" she asked.
"Albert Capone, but I don't have any evidence to prove it."
Pinako closed her eyes before getting up to watch all the school children going home from her apartment window. "If I were still young and able to put up a fight, when I was sure," she paused, "I would find a quiet way, and I would kill him."
"Find a quiet way..." Ed muttered to himself as he stalked down the alleyways. He finally reached the house he had been monitoring so closely the last few days, waiting for Capone to slip up and do something to tip him off that he was on the right track. He waited for the light to turn off upstairs before he used alchemy to open the door quietly. He waited a good half hour then crept up the stairs to his prey.
As he passed the doors on his way he saw that he would have to be quick as some of Capone's gang held residence there. How arrogant of him not leaving anyone to keep watch thinking no one would have it in them to face him but in this moment Edward was fearless, consumed in his rage.
Edward stood in the doorway of the mans room and was filled with disgust at the sight of Capone entwined with two other woman, this was short lived when one lifted her head. She looked at him like a deer caught in head lights.
"Who are you?" she said in a quick hush whisper, "I haven't seen you before, are you here to save us?" In that instance all Ed could see in that girl was me, helpless and afraid, exactly as I had been in the moments before my death. He realized with a gripping pain in his gut that his rage hadn't only been holding his fear at bay, but also his sadness and his humility at not being able to save me. His need to kill had left him and all he knew with his entire being was that he needed to save her. Maybe it was because he wanted to make up for not being able to save me or maybe he was just deluding himself into thinking that I was right there in front of him and he didn't need to worry about revenge anymore. Not even he was sure of his motives.
So quietly he woke the other girl. He helped them untangle themselves from the mans limbs. He gave one his jacket and the other his shirt. Quietly he guided them down the stairs of the house and through the kitchen. They were almost out when one of the girls, unable to see well in the darkness bumped against the table. The vase holding a bouquet of dead daisies was knocked over and rolled off the table landing with a smash on the hard tiles. It wasn't long before the whole house was awake and after them.
Edward held them off while the girls ran. Fighting the henchmen was easy enough and he was done in a matter of minutes. When Capone came out the door sporting a rifle the anger he felt earlier returned. He charged at him consumed by his rage and when he did I couldn't recognise him. This was not the Edward I knew. Those weren't his eyes, they were the eyes of an animal.
Capone pulled the trigger, once, twice. I screamed from where I was watching, up in my heaven. A strong wind emanated from me killing the field of flowers I was sitting in. In that moment I truly believed Edward was dead and even though I knew that meant I would be reunited with him soon, I wished with all my heart for it not to be true. My entire being screamed live! LIVE!
When they dumped his body in the canal that wove through the city I knew it was the end.
