The Mercy of Birds

CHAPTER 26: THE DAYS OF RECKONING

CHAPTER 26
THE DAYS OF RECKONING

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A deal was a deal, right? Regardless of the consequence. Regardless of whose lives were put as a stake.

Unknown Number
Time's up.

She could almost feel a tinge of sympathy for him, whether it was misplaced for someone who had threatened to impoverish her off of her education or not, his circumstance remained prominent. She wondered if keeping the knowledge from him would be better for his sake, but that wasn't her duty to meet and she was far from being a benevolent person who would do something out of good conscience and set aside her needs to preserve other's well being.

Still, the murders fixated her. She found herself drawn into the case unlike any other. Other than the obvious question as to why she had placed an order for the pizza before she killed her father, there was something particularly incongruous when she read about the fact that apparently, Clementine had stabbed her victims exclusively with her right hand when she had been known to be left-handed due to the fact that she had somehow broken her dominant wrist a couple days before the incident, but there was no report of her ever going to the hospital for it, and testimony of her family attested that they didn't know that she had sustained any injury.

She broke her wrist, so what? Well, it could mean anything, either she just didn't mind being in that much of a pain, which-in the right state of mind-was unlikely, but indeed she had schizophrenia, so by that, shouldn't her family be attentive to her? Did they not notice? Did they not care? Had she been hurting, but alerting her own relative could potentially only grant her indifference or even something worse of a consequence?

Also the fact that there was a person she did not kill alongside her two victims made it more curious. The information she collected online elaborated that she had stayed home that day with her youngest brother, whom even if his name was redacted from the news, Nova knew that it was Victor. He had fallen ill and she was treating him, while Georgia was picking up Nicholas and Cameron from football practice. Frank Spencer wasn't supposed to come home until eight that night, but he had arrived earlier than usual at five. As Georgia left the house, Clementine had made an order for a pizza, but then Frank appeared and she just proceeded to murder him. About thirty minutes later, Carson Lee showed up at their doorstep and she opened the door only to also kill him.

Victor's testimony didn't say that there was a moment of a chase between them; he wasn't hiding and she wasn't hunting him down. She spared him. This was even supported by the fact that he was the one who called 911 and she was there with him while he did so. Why? It could very well be explained by an onset of psychotic breakdown, but could the onset really recognize its limit? The stigma surrounding schizophrenia made it so hard for anyone not to be biased. It didn't cause people to commit murder. There had to be other factors surrounding it.

She sighed and threw her notebook on to the table. She had spent all afternoon tracing the chronology and gathered all of the details from online sources, but she knew it wouldn't lead her anywhere if she didn't speak with people who had directly worked on the case.

She picked up her coffee and cupped it on her palms. The warmth pervaded from her skin and lent her a moment of clarity.

She felt for them, but she needed to save herself first and if she had to pick a side between black and white, she would say what Cameron did to his brothers behind their back was wrong.

100k
You will want this.

There was no hint of hesitation on his reply when he asked her of her bank account and she sent him the details of the one she had in South Korea where it wasn't possible for her pimps to discover and thought that she had thwarted them.