The precinct was unusually quiet for a weekday afternoon, the kind of silence that preceded either a breakthrough or a breakdown. Damien sat at his desk, eyes fixed on the evidence board in front of him. Strings of red yarn connected faces, places, and quotes scrawled hastily across index cards. A second, smaller board had started to form beneath it—this one more chaotic, more desperate.
Each box left behind by the killer was labeled with a name.
Each box was a message.
And yet, no fingerprints. No trace DNA. The killer was clean, methodical, and patient. That was what bothered Damien the most: patience meant planning. And planning meant this wasn't impulsive—it was personal.
He was still staring when Jonas walked in, a file in hand.
"I got something," Jonas said, dropping the file on the desk. "Jacob Traynor? The second victim? I dug deeper."
Damien looked up, motioning for him to continue.
"Traynor was part of a disciplinary hearing seven years ago," Jonas said. "Two staff members were accused of patient abuse. Physical restraint, medication overdosing, isolation therapy—illegal stuff. But guess what? The charges disappeared after a closed-door board session. Flint was the whistleblower. Traynor helped bury it."
Damien leaned back in his chair, the wheels turning in his head. "So Traynor had motive to keep Flint quiet."
"And now they're both targets."
Jonas nodded. "Which means the killer might be someone who suffered under their care."
Damien stood. "Pull up the patient list from that year. I want names. All of them."
Cole stood in front of the mirror in his apartment, his reflection foreign and tired. His hands trembled slightly as he washed blood from under his fingernails—not his own, not this time.
He hadn't killed again.
Not exactly.
He had found the dog outside his apartment door, a gift from someone unseen. Its throat had been slit, and its insides rearranged into a pattern he recognized—a symbol carved into the first victim's skin.
The message was clear: Step out of line, and you're next.
He threw the towel aside and walked back into the living room, where the voice recorder Damien had given him months ago still sat on the table.
A part of their arrangement.
A way to control the urges, Damien had said. Speak them, don't act them.
Cole hit record.
"I didn't kill the dog," he said aloud. "But I felt something. Not joy. Not rage. Just… clarity. Like the world makes more sense when it's soaked in chaos."
He stopped the recording and stared at the blinking red light.
Some days, he hated how much sense Damien made.
The killer stood beneath the flickering streetlamp, watching from across the street as the funeral ended. The small group of mourners dispersed slowly, like scattered leaves. Among them was an older woman in a blue dress—Traynor's widow.
The killer's hands curled into fists.
She didn't deserve this. None of them did. But it wasn't about deserving.
It was about balance.
The killer reached into the messenger bag slung over their shoulder and pulled out the next box. This one had a name on it—Miles Perrow. The only surviving member of the disciplinary hearing.
Tonight would be his turn.
At the precinct, Jonas and Damien finally had the full list of patients. Damien scanned through the names, then stopped at one: Rowan Hale.
"That name sounds familiar," Jonas said.
"It should," Damien replied. "He was a minor at the time—16. Admitted for severe dissociative disorder, mixed with hallucinations. He was a ward of the state. No known family."
"Was he one of the abused patients?"
"One of the most vocal ones. Flint protected him for a while, but when the accusations started, Rowan was transferred and later discharged quietly."
Jonas narrowed his eyes. "Where is he now?"
Damien clicked on the record.
"That's the problem," he said. "Rowan Hale hasn't existed in the system for five years."
The door to Miles Perrow's house creaked open as the killer slipped inside like a shadow.
Everything was silent.
A photo of a smiling granddaughter greeted them from the hallway table. Pictures of a long life lined the walls—birthdays, holidays, generational smiles.
The killer took none of it in.
Only the goal mattered.
In the study, Miles sat in his recliner, asleep. A glass of whiskey still in his hand, a book on his chest.
The killer approached slowly, pulled a vial from their coat pocket, and soaked a cloth.
As they pressed it over Miles' mouth, the old man stirred once—then stilled.
The next morning, Damien and Jonas arrived at the scene. Officers stood outside the small suburban house, visibly shaken.
Damien entered and immediately saw the signs—no forced entry, no mess, no struggle. The body was found in the kitchen, posed like he'd sat down to a quiet meal and simply died.
But the table was different.
It had been set for two.
And in the second plate sat a box.
Damien opened it carefully.
Inside was a bloodied ID badge. Jacob Traynor's.
Jonas read the note out loud.
"We can't bury the truth. We can only feed it until it chokes on itself."
Damien stared at it for a long time. "They're not just killing them. They're reliving it."
Jonas frowned. "Reliving what?"
Damien looked up.
"The pain. The trauma. One murder at a time."