Chapter 180 – Dead to Rights – Holly Hayfield

“You fancy yourself some sort of comic book hero, little girl?” Crystal asked, gesturing her knife in my direction. “I’m afraid you’ve watched one too many recent movies.”

“Hero…?” I asked. “I’m not one of those. I don’t think a hero would’ve left your accomplices to bleed out to death.”

Crystal’s angry glare deepened, looking like she was ready to once again go on the attack.

“You little shit…” She hissed between her teeth. “I will kill you tonight.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked. “You seem to have misplaced your gun.”

“I don’t need it to deal with you!”

“Even if you do, then what…?” I asked. “The police are after you. Your home and family are under constant watch. Your former workplace cut all ties with you. Was all this worth it?”

“To kill you…?! Yes! Of course!”

“Why?!” I demanded. “Why go this far?”

Crystal stared at me in silence for a moment. The pews were still burning not far from us. The fire spread to some nearby curtains, fake plants, and other decorations. The smoke from the fire combined with my smoke bombs to create an eerily foggy scene.

In this silence between us, only the ongoing fire made any sounds. Jacob was long gone by now, headed out towards the woods from what little I was able to glimpse when he ran out. Crystal shook her head with an apathetic smile and relaxed her fighting stance. I did the same, lowering my knives for the moment.

“Because you’ve ruined and undermined everything.” She said bitterly. “We could’ve lived our lives scot-free of any consequences from Malorie’s death… You just had to go and roll the bones, didn’t you? Tell me honestly, since we’re talking now, why are you ‘avenging’ Malorie. You aren’t related to her, are you? You’re no professional assassin. You’re just a sneaky, scheming teenage girl.”

I smiled a little.

“Because I am Malorie.”

“Bullshit!” She shouted immediately. “More lies, deception, and utter bullshit! Tell me the truth!”

“I’m telling you the truth as I see it. Malorie’s story mirrors my own. A normal girl sent down into hell and treated like garbage by people around her from day one of arriving at a new school. Only, Malorie didn’t have the friends that I had. Instead, she had you and your cohorts to make her life even worse… Until you decided to take that life, that is.”

“You didn’t know Malorie…!” Crystal said angrily, waving her knife in my direction again. “Not like I knew her! She was a pest! A dweeb! A constant annoyance! A…”

“A young woman that was willing to tell the truth!” I said. “That’s why you killed her!”

“Yes! That’s why we killed her!” Crystal said boldly. “Did you think I might deny it? Of course not! She deserved what she had coming to her! If only she would’ve kept her stupid mouth shut, then maybe she’d still be alive! Maybe she’d still be cursing the world with her ugly paintings! Maybe you wouldn’t even exist!”

“But you killed her, and I do exist.” I said.

I couldn’t help but to smile widely when a particularly contemptuous feeling overwhelmed my heart.

“It’s quite the unfortunate coincidence, isn’t it?” I asked her. “You girls performed a facetious ‘Ritual of Blood’ sacrifice meant for the Killing Cat. To this day, I don’t understand why you’d do something so nonsensical, but maybe you girls had fun?”

“Teenagers do stupid things all the time, your point?”

“My point is that you made a ‘ritual sacrifice’ to summon the spirit of the Killing Cat, and, in a very real way, got exactly what you wished for. You all brought me here, and your dead friends paid the price for it. You and Jackie Sampson are the final two remaining on my list. Your rituals… Your murders… Your schemes… They were all a mistake.”

There was another moment of silence as Crystal stared at me in bewilderment. Her stark change in expression made clear how deeply my words cut her. She knew that I was right. Had they done things differently, acted more cautiously, then maybe I wouldn’t have gathered enough information to oust their conspiracy.

It was because of their arrogance that my friends and I were able to connect so many dots. It was their actions that brought me here as much as mine. When they stabbed Malorie to death, they never imagine that, in time, a knife would be turned on them for committing that crime.

Crystal inhaled an exhaled dramatically to calm her nerves. She assumed her fighting stance once again and I did the same. It looked like the talking was over. She produced a second knife from one of her pockets to mirror my two-knife stance. This was going to get ugly.

“Live or die…” She said. “I just want to take you down.”

She charged at me, this time with more self-control than in her previous attacks. I dodged the first knife, and she immediately followed up with the second, not missing a beat. I failed to move out of the way in time, the second knife cut through my hoodie, scratching my arm.

Her assault didn’t slow down with that partial landing of her attack. She continued swiping and slicing at me, while I was forced to dodge away and backpedal several steps. I was ‘losing’ this fight, unable to find a clear opening.

When one came, it was only because she was too impatient and messed up her footing in an attempt to lunge at me. I capitalized on that screw up by cutting her arm as I stepped out of the way of her lunge. She was wearing a relatively thick jacket and the cut didn’t do much damage.

After a full minute of combat like that, I came to realize the truth of her words. Live or die, she just wanted me to go down no matter what. Her offensive continued regardless of any damage she took, not that I was able to land any decisive blows.

Every hit I landed on her was a glancing or shallow blow. The same was true of her successful attacks as well. Given the complications of fighting an opponent wielding two knives at close range, getting hit a few times was inevitable. My goal was to maximize the outcome of each strike to her, while minimizing her strikes against me.

I was failing at that. It wasn’t that her attacks against me were very successful. It was because we were too evenly matched. If it came down to a stamina battle of attrition, then I wasn’t sure I’d win. I needed to do something in order to gain the advantage.

It was hard to get any breathing space to stop and think in a fight like this. The only thing I could do to gain some separation between us was sacrifice one of my knives. I threw one knife at her as I pulled away. She dodged it, of course, but it gave me the time I needed to create some distance.

I leapt back onto the closest pew behind me. She was less surprised by this than the first time she saw my acrobatic skill. She was careful about choosing how to proceed, eyeing me speculatively and trying to guess my next move from this vantage point.

Instead of making any sort of counterstrategy, she simply jumped up onto the pew with me. The rickety old wooden pew trembled with both of us standing on it. Crystal teetered in place as she tried to gain her balance. I used this as an opportunity to go on the offensive.

She was pained to defend herself while also trying to avoid tipping over the seat’s ledge. This was to my advantage. She guarded herself from my knives with her own, putting her in an unenviable position. With my knives still pressing against hers, I bared all my strength and weight against her.

She was forced down from the pew, hitting the back of her head on the pew in front of us as she went down. She swiped out towards me with one of her knives to try getting some recovery space. That wasn’t a problem for me. I jumped back dramatically, landing on the pew behind the one I was on.

Even more distance was created between us, and I held a major advantage. I still had several knives on my belt, ready to be thrown. I launched an onslaught of knife after knife at her, trying to cause as much damage as I could.

Her thick jacket was helping her withstand my knives. I was solely focused on trying to keep her on the defensive. Very few of the knives were thrown powerfully enough to impale her through that jacket. Only one managed to stick her in the leg, but not deeply.

She realized what I was doing and changed tactics. She got back up onto the pew and launched herself at me in an attempt to tackle me, much like Angel did to me before. Only this time, I was more prepared for this type of tactic. The moment she came into contact with me I let her push me over the back of the pew I was standing on.

We fell back together, but I managed to flip backwards while in the air. We hit the ground hard. She ended up being the one pinned by the end of this disorientating maneuver. She dropped both of her knives and was left at my mercy. I raised my knife and Crystal put her hands up to defend herself.

The knife went through one of her hands and she cried out in pain. In a sudden surge of desperate strength, she was able to push me off her, causing me to roll off to the side. I backed away towards the aisle between pews as she stood back up. I kept backing away even further as she pulled the knife out of her hand.

She stumbled as she took a few steps towards me before staring down at her bleeding hand. She stuttered before taking a few more wobbly steps forward, moving as though she were drunk. At first, I thought that maybe that she was delirious from exhaustion, but then I realized what was happening with a bit of surprise.

“What…?” She asked uncertainly. “What the hell did you do to me?”

“Is your vision swimming?” I asked.

All the anger drained from her face as she stared at me in confusion. This fight was over.

“The poison finally took effect. You got a dose of it back when I first hit your arm and made you drop your gun.” I explained. “I wasn’t sure this batch would work. It’s good to have confirmation.”

“You…” She started to say, meandering towards me.

She tried to grab me, but this move was far too slow for me to be caught by it. I easily sidestepped her hand and swept her legs from under her in a swift kick. I didn’t even bother trying to take advantage of this. She was no longer in a position to adequately defend herself with the poison doing its work.

We turned our heads as we both heard the sounds of police sirens approaching in the distance.

“You… You called the police here…?!” Crystal groaned in pain.

“One of my friends did, yes. I asked her to summon the police here if I didn’t report in at a certain time.” I said. “It was the very first contingency I made. Like you said earlier, live or die, I just want to take you down.”

“I should’ve known that a coward like you would…”

“It’s more than that.” I said. “You killed Sarah. I wanted the police to get her inside perspective of Malorie’s murder conspiracy. Now they’ll get yours instead.”

Crystal grimaced in pain as she slowly started to get up off the ground.

“You little…”

She grabbed a handful of shattered glass on the ground and tossed it at me. I blocked the attack with my arms. The attack wasn’t at all effective in terms of damage, but it did give her the head start she needed in order to run for the side exit. I didn’t hesitate to go after her.

She ran through the door and headed out into the woods near the Davidson East Cemetery. She wouldn’t be able to outrun me in her condition. She made it less than three hundred feet before I caught up with her and tackled her to the ground.

“It’s over!” I shouted. “Give up!”

“Never!”

“Turn yourself over to the police and you’ll be able to see your family again!” I said. “This is the best outcome you could possibly hope for!”

“I’d rather die with my friends than see you get what you want!” She shouted angrily.

She tried to wrestle me off her and was annoyingly effective. She was incredibly stubborn. In the end though, the poison decided this little tussle and she was forced to relent as I held her down. She still squirmed beneath my grasp, still trying to break free.

“Freeze!” Someone shouted from behind us. “Put your hands where I can see them!”

Oh no… I put my mask back into place and then slowly complied with the order. I let my knives drop to the ground as I put my hands up.

“Now stand up, turn around and face me!” The man said.

I did so, making sure to keep my foot on Crystal in order to keep her pinned. The police officer gave me a wide-eyed look, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was hard to fully gauge his reaction with his bright flashlight shining in my face.

He was alone in the woods with us. The rest of the police force must’ve gone inside the burning church while he went around the side. He had his gun pointed directly at me and there was nothing I could do from this position. He had me dead to rights.

“You…! You’re the Killing Cat?!” He asked.

I nodded.

“Then…” He started to say.

He lowered the flashlight down to Crystal Gray. I slowly backed off her so that he could get a full picture of her.

“The cop killer!” He shouted angrily. “You killed two of my friends tonight! Both of them died in the ICU!”

“Like I care!” Crystal shouted. “They made a mistake by coming after me!”

The police officer pointed his flashlight back at me.

“You… Killing Cat… You chased her down? We were told over the phone that there was a hostage. Did you see the hostage?”

I pointed to the last direction that I saw Jacob run to. It was impossible to say where he was by now.

“You freed him?” He asked.

I nodded again. The police officer nodded back and then started radioing his situation in over his walkie-talkie. That’s when Crystal pushed off from the ground and started to run away as fast as she could.

“Stop!” The officer warned.

He briefly glanced at me before taking off after her, probably deciding that Crystal was the priority target. I took that as my cue to get lost and ran off in a different direction. Crystal wouldn’t be able to run far, not after everything she went through tonight.

Now the police would finally have their key witness.