Everything slotted into place for Tristan at awkward angles. The way Quinn had followed after him as he strung the puzzle together, always popping up unexplainably. Their persistence, insistence, endless drive. The gleeful way they'd referenced the call's game during that very first reluctant conversation. Their easy present of the clue that led to Kordyn and her company, to a dead end, when really the answer had laid with that very tablet all along. It had all been too convenient, the swinging trail. Why hadn't he seen it?

Annoyance formed the fibre underneath his skin, but truthfully another word scrawled itself into his mind, looped by those haphazard puzzle pieces.

Betrayal.

Quinn's eyes lit with that unnaturally bright, glittering aquamarine. They snorted another laugh. "My word, look at your face, Triscuit. Perfect. I should get a picture."

Tristan reshaped his expression into a scowl. He moved Raphael's gun so that it pointed at his ally-turned-enemy. "You're Sally Fletcher. You were pretending all along."

"You're still mightily slow, I see." Quinn huffed and flicked an indigo strand of hair out of their face, unflinching under the gun's stare. Their sweeping glance caught on Sampson. "Are you still here?"

Sampson opened his mouth to protest, frowned as if baffled by the situation, then shook his head and shouldered open the door. The rest of his gang were quick to follow, bored of the destruction they'd caused. The chaos of a brawl was over. Now it was just Tristan and Quinn and the stillness, the bated breath stirred by rods of confusion. The stage was set for their game's end.

"I was Sally Fletcher," Quinn continued once they had the floor to themself. Their head tipped, expression musing, as they meandered a step forward. "She's been dead a long time now. I only revive her when I need her."

Their hair's yellow-blonde roots clashed like sand against a nightly ocean with the dyed tips. The dye had been pink-purple when they'd first met, but whichever colour dripped there, its intention was a mask. Such vibrant decor always was. He'd suspected it at the start; the instinct lurked there, but it had gotten lost. Was it the whispers of friendship that had driven it away? Had he truly gotten swept into the nonsense he forever tried to avoid? He set his jaw, grip tightening on the gun if only to stamp down on the unwelcome ache in his chest. Betrayal. Stupid, strange, but painful. People always had their price, their consequences. He should've known better.

"The game was never mine, was it?" he forced out.

"Never." They grinned, a laughing sigh drifting out that flowed through their body in an amused shudder. "Oh, but you just couldn't help yourself, could you? You were so, so predictable and I called it from the start." Another couple of wandering steps brought them a little more than an arm's length away. The gun was level with their forehead.

Tristan grasped it with a second hand if only to quell the trembling in his fingers. "Seth and Jack? You killed both of them?"

They raised an eyebrow. "Do I really need to spell that out to you?"

"I need to hear you say it."

Their next exhale came as a hiss, and something darker flickered behind the glee in their eyes, a shark's silhouette beneath ocean depths. "Ah, Tristan Young," they said, their voice as playful as ever despite the shadowed look. They stepped forward again, meeting his eyes with laser-like strength. "I despise you." A smile slithered into place.

"Is that why you're doing this?" he demanded. "You've pitted us as enemies?"

Quinn sighed. "All this time, and it's still always about you, isn't it? It makes my skin crawl to prove you right, to be honest." In a flash, they caught his wrist, bringing a small, twisting stab of pain as they swung past it, dodging out of the gun's path. Within the second, their face was mere inches from his. Their head tilted downward, the shade of the blood-red lights casting their face in dusty scarlets and pale, olive greys. "Would you like to know why I hate you, Tristan?"

Throat dry, Tristan swallowed, then regretted it as his throat bobbed. Quinn's lips twitched.

"It's a pity you don't remember," they said, a hum interlacing the words, "but you always are so ignorantly clueless. You met Sally before, when she was still living. She came to your sad little one-man agency for help." Their eyes narrowed, spiky bangs slashing across to half-conceal them from view. "You turned her away."

Sally Fletcher. The name sketched itself out yet again in his mind, flowing in inky pen-strokes that formed the image of the girl he'd searched for, more detailed now that he filled in the gaps with Quinn's features. Yellow hair. Dimmer, more murkily-coloured eyes hidden behind thin lenses and gold-painted metal frames. "A case?" he asked.

"Help," Quinn growled, smile collapsing inward. They jerked back, stalking a slow, tight arc of a circle in front of him. "Sally was afraid, you see. Vulnerable. She hadn't quite found who she was yet, and she feared home was no longer a safe place for a child like her. She was barred from going to the police, and so she sought out something different -- someone new, unknown, off the radar. A single person" -- they held up a forefinger, wiggling it, turning sharply on their heels as they did so -- "who could truly, objectively find her the evidence she needed to escape the hell her caretakers had crafted." Blue fire burned in their glare. "So no, not a cleverly-woven case, Tristan. Not a game or a puzzle played against an opponent. Just a silly little quest to help someone in need. Are you getting it yet?"

The memory unfurled, spreading, gaining clarity. He'd been nineteen when he enrolled as a detective: dropped from a brief, terrible stint as a university law student and hiding in the comfort of a more solitary passion. Someone had come to his office within the initial two weeks. The very first one. They'd been a distant, easily-overlooked shadow amongst that year's dust until now.

He bit the inside of his cheek. He'd known he was a fool back then, but this twisted unease in his gut. "I..." He realised he still held up the gun, and stiffly lowered it, the air cold and prickling. "I was arrogant."

"Was?" Quinn smirked. "Arrogance is in your blood, Tristan." Their face twisted. "It's sickening."

"Nevertheless," he said, the words hard and brittle enough to sever his squirming thoughts, "you're a murderer." His finger grazed the gun's trigger, reminding himself of its safety as well as its weight. "Whether this game was meant to punish me or not, you've given it up. You killed Seth and Jack." Say it.

They rolled their eyes, rocking on their heels. "Yes, if it pleases you. I shot an obnoxious good-for-nothing celebrity in the chest and pushed an abusive asshole out of a window." Their laugh came short like the snap of teeth, deeply bitter. "I had to help myself in the end, Tristan, and since then I've learned how the world really works. If anything, I thought someone like you would understand."

A grating hollowness swept over his bones, resonating like someone had plucked a string. His shoes were concrete crushing his feet into the floor. "Why would I understand?"

"Well, you want to shoot me now, don't you?" A knowing smile graced their lips. "You would have already if I was anyone else. You see, that's why the true winner here is not you at all. It's me." They stilled right before him, arms lifted up in a showmanly gesture. "I made you care about me." A few notes of a laugh tripped out. "And I still could not give a shizzle about you. Does that hurt? Please, do tell me that hurts."

Their laugh came with a lean, one that doubled them forward, slipped out another step until their face was uncomfortably close to his again. He edged backwards. His back hit the counter, and Quinn's fingers grazed his chin, grabbing it roughly and jerking it down to maintain eye contact. The touch stung as if their stunted nails held barbs.

"Poor Tristan," they murmured, reaching up to knock his glasses so that they tipped into a slight angle, hand brushing a strand of his hair.

He gritted his teeth. "Stop."

"I can do my research too, you know," they continued, ignoring his protest. "Better than a lousy detective, I'd say. You were a sad child?"

Some itching quality to their voice, a smoothed ribbon laced just beneath it, conveyed their veiled meaning. He lost track of his breathing. "If you spoke to my mother--"

"Sad and lonely and hiding from the world." Quinn grinned. "She said you were doing better nowadays, but we both know how amusingly wrong that is. You've just gotten better at lying, right? We all do, as we grow."

Hooking his elbow into their chest, he shoved, pushing hard enough to make them stumble away. "I said stop," he snapped. The gun lifted up to fill the newly-made space between them, his arms taut, the weapon's muzzle nearly grazing Quinn's teal hoodie.

They did react to it this time. Just a small amount of stiffness, a frozen nature to their previously fluid, dancing poise, although they still smiled at him as if all the power in the world, all the knowledge, belonged to them. As if they were in command of it all. "Your mum is a lovely woman, by the way," they said, voice bouncing from one syllable to the next. "You should call her more often." They let out a loose sigh and folded their arms, gaze sharpening, raking from the gun to flick in surveillance from his toes to his face. "It's like a cloud around you, Tristan. A sad, grey, unpleasant cloud, pushing everyone else away. I almost feel sorry--"

He wasn't aware he was squeezing the trigger until its sound split the air.

Quinn's scream hit his ears next. It was loud and surprisingly high pitched, like a soaring, piercing whistle that sounded far too long. They staggered back, wavered, then fell backward, hand scrabbling to clasp the scarlet spot soaking through from their thigh. The blood stained their fingers. They cried out again, eyes wide and almost teary in horror as they stared up at him.

It was a complete shift. Tristan stood there for a moment, stunned, the shot's staticy echo reverberating in his ears and gun humming with warmth in his hands. Then the double doors burst open and it all made sense.

"Drop your weapon!" Inspector Halley shouted. "Hands where I can see them!"

His mind only succeeded in registering the second command. His hands rose above his head, jittering as if embraced by electricity. A team of police officers fanned out behind Halley, three of them -- her included -- armed with guns of their own. Stun guns, the law dictated, but stuttering fear still coiled a loop in his gut. It crackled, splitting the rest of his thoughts. This wasn't right. This couldn't be right.

Halley stood right behind Quinn now, glaring him down. He'd seen snapshots of her fury, but it was full and armoured now, not aimless but weaponised with command. "Put the gun down," they ordered again, lower, harsher. "Nice and slow. Keep your other hand raised."

He inhaled. Where were words when he needed them? "This isn't--"

"Do it."

He made himself obey. As he sank into a gradual, steady crouch, he made the mistake of catching Quinn's eye. They were still staring at him in emphatic fear, though in that moment their mouth thinned to shape a brief, crooked smile, hidden laughter unveiled only for him shining in their eyes. They winked.

Anger scratched within his veins, and he suddenly lost the desire to let the gun leave his hand. Fear was a cooling blanket to the heat, however. It niggled, reminding him of the eyes staring his way, the way everything was breaking apart at his fingertips.

A figure abruptly barged their way through the wall of police officers, inflicting him with another wave of hesitation, and then a second stab of fear as he locked onto the new face.

"Where is--" Otto's demand cut short as he made it inside, his burning gaze landing on something to Tristan's left. Raphael, still crumpled on the ground, his wound bleeding furiously by now. The boy's face was ashen, his eyes half-shut. Tristan's stomach clenched, but it was far too late. Otto's attention slashed to him. Their eyes met.

"You," Otto snarled. Halley attempted to hold out a hand to ward him back, but there was no stopping someone who bore a look that dark. Tristan twitched with the urge to run, but there was no time to move anywhere.

The gun finally slipped from his fingers as Otto snatched a handful of his jacket, practically lifting his heels off the ground before slamming him into the counter behind. Broken glass clinked. His spine ached.

"I told you to stay away from my brother." Otto's voice rumbled, a growling earthquake that reminded Tristan rather bitterly of a snapping, defensive dog -- not the little terrier he owned, but something far bigger and deadlier. His knuckles pressed into Tristan's ribs. "I warned you."

Tristan's heart thundered. He couldn't find the energy to squirm; even his tongue was heavy to lift in a weak argument. "I didn't--"

"I warned you!" Otto shook his fist, the force of the action making the counter tremble and rattle along with Tristan's bones. His glare seethed.

"I didn't hurt your brother," Tristan tried again, surprised so little of the desperation coursing through him made it to his voice. "It was necessary that I came here, but none of this is my fault." Was it? Quinn's manic anger, darker than this explosion of Otto's, still simmered in the air like a blaze, devouring his skin piece by piece. He bit down on his tongue, wincing as Otto tightened his grip further.

"And to think I was willing to help you--"

"That's enough," Halley cut in sharply, accompanying the words with a hand on his shoulder and a decided tug backwards. Though he likely could've fought her, he obliged, though his fiery gaze remained pinned on Tristan.

"You're too far gone," he added in a low mutter.

Too far gone. As if to comply, Tristan's senses seemed to dim, a distance pulling him back from the scene. He was aware of everything, but faintly. Sirens wailed outside. Voices' clamour leaked back in, a murmuring panic spawning as more people broke into the scene. Paramedics rushed to tend to the wounded. Otto shrugged Halley off and slid out of vision to kneel down beside his bleeding brother. There were guarded conversations, wariness and gratitude alike, and Tristan felt somewhat like the eye of the storm, a drifting anchor of silence while it all simply happened around him. The counter still dug into his back. Carefully, he eased himself off it, but made it barely a step before someone caught his wrist.

A hard, fate-sealing snap followed. The icy sting of metal encased the wrist, sending his skin crawling with cold discomfort. His arm was yanked behind his back and soon joined by the other. A chain clinked.

"Tristan Young," Halley said at his back as she finished fastening the handcuffs, their weight dragging at him and looping around him in more ways than reality, "you're under arrest. Come quietly, please," she added in a lower voice. "You've caused me enough trouble already."

Fear and frustration raked over one another, a mix of grit and sand. He twisted to look at her over his shoulder. "You have this all wrong. It's Quinn. They confronted me and confessed to the murders. They've been--"

"Quietly," Halley stressed, and dug her fingers into his shoulder. Tristan clenched his jaw and raised his voice.

"They did all this on purpose. Quinn wants this. They started the game and changed the rules, and now this is how they're winning it." He barely knew what he was saying anymore. The words tripped from his mouth in a rambling string, and still Halley kept pushing him, edging him towards the door, the chaos around him parting to watch. His wrists ached beneath the cuffs. Unwelcome panic bloomed upward in his chest, a beast of claws and tentacles that cut everything in reach.

His next step brought him within Quinn's eyeline. Their leg was being bandaged, and they smiled politely and shakily, pretending away, so perfect and fluid in their act. It was only when they caught his eye did he see that spark of challenge, that glint of victory, mocking him on and on.

Because they were right, weren't they? He was lonely, and it did follow him. He was odd. He was different. And maybe, just maybe, he wasn't fine with that. There was nothing like marching to his doom, alone, pinned by hatred's multitudinal darts, to remind him of how bitter the solitude could be.

His palms itched and his ears rang, stringy flashes of gunshots lingering at the forefront of his mind. Perhaps, from the very start, he had looked in the wrong places. After all, he'd never stopped to examine suspect number five. He'd never wondered what damage an arrogant, friendless, failure of a man could do.

He'd thought he could do it all himself by dragging the others down, thought deep within it all that he was above them somehow, but he'd failed. And now there was no-one left to save him.

He bowed his head, staring blankly at the floor as it shifted beneath his slow, plodding steps. Perhaps, in some twisted way, this was a righteous end.

"Wait, stop!"

He didn't dare look up at first. Not until the hand on his shoulder was wrenched away, and a slim body slid into view in its place, arm stretched out like a shield. Auburn hair swayed, tangled strands bouncing and curling outward like sparks of a shadowed, sputtering flame. Constance was nearly a head shorter than him, but her chin tilted up, her shoulders more rigid and spine straighter than it had ever been.

"He's telling the truth," she added. Her voice and her legs were far from steady, but she pressed on through. "I promise."

Halley blinked and stepped back, startled. "I'm sorry. You're..."

"Constance Clark," Constance finished surprisingly firmly, not allowing the police inspector to trail more than a second in search of her name. "I was here. I heard what Quinn said as well, and Tristan is right." She paused, taking in a careful shuddering breath, her composure settling with every moment she stood there. He could almost hear confidence in her voice when she spoke again. "And I have more proof than that."

Tristan felt as if he'd stepped into a thick, syrupy dream. Shame crested and fell in his chest, a tightness that goaded him about remaining silent and letting her fight the battle for him -- a battle that wasn't hers at all -- but his throat felt dry of words. He opened his mouth anyway, searching.

As if she'd anticipated it, Constance cast him a single, short-lived glance over her shoulder. Her chestnut eyes smouldered with surety, burning the urge away. Let me help, she seemed to convey. I can do this.

With numb disbelief solidifying his thoughts, he let her.

"Go on," Halley prompted.

"Quinn's former name is Sally Fletcher," Constance continued, her fear all but gone. Her arm had dropped to her side but her stance was no less shielding. "They've been using that name again to hide what they've been doing. They came to me as Sally -- no dye in their hair, and... and glasses instead of blue contact lenses, I think. In the second floor corridor of the university." She sucked in another steadying breath, some semblance of a faint, distant smile entering her voice. "The place where they killed Jack didn't have any cameras, like you probably know, but that corridor does. Check it, and you'll see Quinn -- Sally -- speak to me. A-and threaten me."

A beat of silence passed, one Halley filled with a hum. Tristan knew how to pounce on this one. "You can speak to Savannah Dawson, too," he said. "She also met Sally."

"And a man called Sampson?" Constance said in a hurry before Halley could react. "I--I don't really know who he is, but I could describe him for you. He's the one who shot Raphael and injured all these people. Ask them -- they'll tell you. It wasn't Tristan, so let him go."

More silence, one taut with tension. Halley surveyed them both with narrowed eyes. The knot in Tristan's stomach frayed, nipped at by a tentative, tingling droplet of hope. Her sigh had never felt so heavy, like there was so much that hung on it.

She pressed her lips together, rolled her heels, then spoke. "I'm going to need to take you both back to the station to verify all these claims, but..." She nodded, then inclined her head towards the door. "Alright. Follow me."

Constance didn't budge. "Uncuff Tristan first. He's not a criminal."

A sour frown pinched in Halley's lingering surprise, but nevertheless, she obliged. Warm air graced Tristan's wrists once more, and he exhaled a breath he hadn't realised he was holding in until now. He drew his hands to his front, twisting them together, thumb rubbing at the chilled skin. Something subdued still hugged at his shoulders like a blanket despite the loose relief. He bit the inside of his cheek and let Halley nudge him forward. He very desperately needed to find somewhere quiet to review the chaos of this day.

Halley was calling the name of one of her colleagues, ordering him to bring along Quinn for questioning. He glanced up and found their gaze once more. There was a brief widening of their eyes, a stuttering surprise that spooled out into their features before they regained their previous mask of false innocence. Even when the veil did reappear, a crack ran down the middle of it. Their jaw was tight, lips twisted into a sneer. Hatred crouched like an animal behind their eyes. Whatever happened from this point, Tristan had a feeling he'd be seeing that look in the back of his mind for a long, long time.

Constance's cautious touch brushed his arm, jerking his attention away. She shot him a thin, shy smile, tongue flicking out to run over her lips as if she'd lost whatever she was going to say. Her hand retracted to sweep the hair out of her face.

He found himself stuck in a similar rut of hesitation, but strived to pull himself out of it. Two words. They were oddly hard to lift, but he pulled them free all the same, wincing at how quiet they emerged. "Thank you."

Her smile twitched a little higher before she hid it. "You're just a person, right?"

He wished he could offer more than a stiff nod. They passed through the door together, and the evening's breeze coiled around them, a shivering chill that whispered of a freedom no-one truly knew they were craving until they tasted it. It swept away dust and cobwebs, sank in a grateful sigh. He tilted his face into it.

The sky above was crystal clear. There was a peace to that, the cloudlessness, the golden sun outlining rooftops as it perched upon the horizon.

He let his eyes slide closed. No games, no puzzles. Just peace. Perhaps, someday, he'd figure out how to achieve that.

Chapter Wordcount: 3908

Total Wordcount: 37528

Honestly, Quinn makes such an epic antagonist. Look at them vibe.

This chapter is messy as heck but it brought itself to a conclusion and I'm very happy about it. Just one more closing-up chapter to go and we'll be done :D

- Pup