Dexter Morgan

🍂- for our muses to catch each other wandering too close to the forest at night​

So many people were out at various Halloween celebrations and Kara had gotten her fill of candy and fun earlier in the night. She hadn’t planned on wander to the edge of town and making her way to the forest, but something about it was drawing her to explore. Her bulletin board of too little information at work just irked her to no end, and if the police weren’t going to give her answers, then maybe she’d be able to find them herself. If there was something dangerous going on (besides the obvious), then the people had a right to know the truth. What she hadn’t expected was to run into someone during her sneaking around. “Oh! Trick or treat?” she lamely attempted to joke despite the fact that she was dressed as one of the Ghostbusters and wandering near the forest close to midnight. “You know, I swore there was another house somewhere around here. Can’t miss on any free candy!”

~*~

It was time to get to the bottom of this. Dexter was tired of feeling ten steps behind. There had to be more evidence in the woods, and he needed time to look for it without the cops breathing down his neck and asking if he was finished with his pictures yet. He just needed a little time alone. Then he’d find something... anything. 

The crime scene tape had already been removed. Dexter shook his head, and started forward, creeping on instinct through the shadows of the tree line. No one should’ve been out here, but the sound of twigs snapping caught his attention. The footsteps were drawing closer, or maybe they weren’t -- the sounds echoed strangely in the forest. Dexter quickly moved, pushing through the bushes, heading deeper into the forest.

Or so he thought. He found himself bursting out of the forest, and worse, right in front of someone. A woman dressed as a Ghostbuster. “Uh, yeah,” he said, holding his arms out wide. “I thought so too. Got turned around though. Weird coincidence, huh?” Hopefully his murder outfit could pass as a costume...

⛪ - for our muses to run into each other near the Church of Greater Echo Area

She wasn’t entirely sure how she ended up by the Church, she had been wondering around a little too lost in thought and only now she realised where she was -her father would be very upset she had been so absent minded- she noticed that the church had decorated somewhat maybe not full on Halloween but it looked nice, after that she noticed that there weren’t many people around in fact she only saw one other person around. “Good night” She greeted “Are you going to church?”

~*~

Churches had always seemed particularly out of reach for Dexter. He had no interest in changing that, but he wondered sometimes. If he was missing something. (Apart from the obvious pieces he already knew about.) The ceremony of it, the grandeur -- if it was everything the faithful claimed, then it was the ultimate connection. Not just to another person, but to some other-worldly being. But that wasn’t why Dexter was staring. He’d been taking a moment away from the crowd of the Halloween party, when the church caught his eye, and suddenly one of those images flashed through his head. A kill room in a church, a man under his knife, something terrible happening afterwards -- not the kill, the kill was smooth, but something he couldn’t fully see or understand. None of it made sense. He had never killed in a church. So what was going on? Only the sudden voice knocked him out of his thoughts. “Oh, uh, hello,” he said, raising his hand. “I was just taking a walk actually. Do they even do services this late?”

That’s what the police are for, right? Minnow didn’t smile back, when the man did. He reached into the car, and pulled out a battery, and lay the camera down on the front of the car. Minnow stared as he pulled one out, like he was gutting a deer, and replaced it with another. The cops weren’t there to protect people. They were there to watch them, to judge them, and find a reason to lock them up away from the outside world and throw away the key. That’s what the Prophet said. He’d been to jail. He didn’t like to talk about it much, but the Kevinians all knew. She realised she hadn’t replied for a few seconds, so she said, “The police are here to watch people.” And she just stopped herself from saying That’s what the Prophet says. This man was a cop. He didn’t deserve to know that.

Instead she stood in silence, watching as the man closed the open back of the camera. When he mentioned the press conference, she shook her head, stiltedly. “I’m not going to the press conference,” she said. She knew, without checking with the Deacons, that they would have gone back to the clearing by then. It wasn’t safe to be away from Charlie’s land for this long. Already, she felt like this was the longest conversation she’d had with a Gentile in months. But that was what the Prophet had told them to do. Gather information, and report back.

And she seemed to be doing well, because the stranger said he looked for patterns, and pressed a button on the camera, and suddenly, Minnow could see photographs of a body, lying on the forest floor, surrounded by blood. She blinked at it. The man pointed at the blood stains, the splashes of red, and the large pool of it, and he explained what it meant. As he spoke, she frowned, taking the information in. She could feel it soaking in, the way the Prophet’s teachings did. Learning. But, unlike when she learnt from the Prophet, she could see what this cop was talking about for herself, and put it together. When he said it raised more questions, she looked up quickly. “Questions like what?” she asked. “She died there, so someone killed her there.” She looked down at the photograph again, and she spotted something.

“But the blood…” she said, slowly. “It doesn’t look like someone slit her throat.” She raised her hand, and drew her finger across her own throat, gently. “When you slit a deer’s throat, the blood goes psh –” She gestured a spray out of her neck, spreading her fingertips like a starfish. “And it flies out onto the floor. But that’s not what this looks like.” She tilted her head to the side a little, like an inquisitive dog, and then blinked and realised how close she was to the Gentile – so close that she could smell him. She stepped back quickly, and wiped her hands on the skirt of her dress without thinking. What would the Deacons say, if they’d seen? But she looked their way, and they were still talking to the officers. She let out a slow sigh of relief.

~*~

Dexter raised a brow. “I... guess you’ve got a point,” he said. “But only people who’ve done bad things. Trust me, they don’t get paid enough to watch everyone all the time,” he said, with a casual grin. He didn’t think she’d return it. It didn’t seem like she smiled much. He wondered which was worse. A plethora of fake smiles or an honest lack of them?

Maybe there wasn’t much of a difference.

“Okay,” he said. “Well, uh...” He followed her gaze towards the two men she’d come with. “If you give me your name and contact information, I might be able to get back to you when I know more,” he offered. He couldn’t help but wonder about her, about her situation. There was something very strange there -- but was it his curiosity or the Dark Passenger’s that had been piqued? 

He didn’t really have the authority to make such an offer, or to show her the pictures, but he wanted to gauge her reaction. Wanted to know more about her, to understand what was happening here. (As much as he could understand. He was, after all, just a monster.) “Does it?” he prompted. “Just because she died here, that doesn’t mean she was attacked here.” But she barely seemed to hear him, she was deep in thought. He nodded as she spoke again. His mind filled in the red splashes to her pantomime. “Exactly,” he breathed. 

He was staring at her. She knew he was staring. It wasn’t in her head – not some imaginary eyes in the forest watching her. His eyes locked with hers and Leah stared right back, like staring long enough would give her the answers to her questions.

“Not a lot you know or not a lot you’re allowed to say,” she challenged him, chin jutting out a bit defiantly. She wasn’t sure which answer would be worse – that the police had zero fucking idea why there were bodies in the woods or that they wouldn’t say what they had found out. A scratch on her elbow bled as she picked at the skin. “I – why would I know her? No one is allowed close to the body and you guys haven’t even said who the victim is yet!” Her voice cracked an octave higher as her sentence trailed on. Had they identified the newest victim and somehow linked it to her? To her family? Was it one of her classmates? Or maybe someone else from that cursed ‘camp’ she’d been sent to a year ago.

Leah took a deep breath. “I’m just saying… there hasn’t been, like, any information released.”

~*~

Dexter opened his mouth and closed it again. He looked over his shoulder, saw several pairs of eyes staring back at them, whispering among the crowd. This was bad, or at least on it’s way to bad. He could hear Harry’s voice in his head like an alarm bell. Warning him over and over. Get away from her, Dex. Run while you can. 

But he didn’t. Even when she started to shout, even when more eyes looked at them. Even when that little drop of blood appeared under her nails, trickling down her arm like a scarlet ribbon. Dexter felt his breath catch in his throat. His vision tunneled. Everything else went black, muted. 

His hand shot out, wrapping around her arm. Just above where the scratch had opened. “Here,” he said, pulling a piece of gauze from his pocket. “You should take care of that. I’ve got bandages in my kit, rubbing alcohol too.” 

{ tw: gore} He couldn’t hold back a flinch at the words. Seeing death. The thought had Kaz gagging, and he had to swallow tightly, shutting his eyes for a brief moment at the spots that danced in his vision, the things he could picture when he thought of the image of death. 

Visceral, rotted sinew strewn around water, coating every one of his senses in putrid death. Eyes, open but unseeing, his own eyes staring back at him and up into the sky. He felt the bloat of a corpse beneath his hands, saw a face turned unfamiliar floating in the water and the desperation to get safe, water kicking beneath small legs and lungs filling with brackish water. Shivering, shaking in sickness, covered in bile and so, so cold.

Pulling in a long, slow breath through his nose, Kaz recovered from the moment he had - just a moment, but he feared it cost him. His reactions were difficult to control, at times, but there were moments were he had no control at all - those were the ones he hated most. “It draws people in. These true crime junkies - podcasts just can’t seem to do the job for them anymore.” His voice sounded high and thready, even to himself. Desperate in a way he hadn’t been in a long time. He stared down at the hand offered to him.

The part of himself that cared so much about appearances, the one that needed to look like a real person and not some semblance of humanity left starving in the gutter, said he needed to shake this hand. Needed to look normal. Another part snarled at the thought of his own fear, and the last - the last, curled up in a corner, shaking, that wouldn’t let him lift his hand. He looked at the man’s hand, attempting to will himself to touch it, even with the gloves on, he could manage it, he could shake a hand, it was just skin, it was - 

He couldn’t manage it. 

He looked back up at the man’s hand, ignoring the offer to shake, and simply nodded. “I’m very concerned. Do you know if this is connected to the other bodies discovered?”

~*~

Oh...kay. That wasn’t the reaction Dexter had expected. The boy’s voice had shaken, he had gone stiff and trembled for just a moment. Like he’d had a sudden shiver, but it was a warm fall day. Dexter’s eyes shone as he looked him over. There was a darkness here, that was certain. Something with sharp teeth and gleaming eyes. A shadow in his soul. 

But there was weakness too. A strange image flashed through Dexter’s mind -- a small boy, tears rolling down his cheeks and blood sticking to his hands. It was disturbing, and nothing disturbed Dexter. He shook his head and took a step backwards, pulling his hand back to the camera. Suddenly he didn’t want to shake either. 

“Hard to say right now,” he said, shrugging a shoulder. “It definitely seems that way though...” He busied himself with inserting the camera battery. “But if you give me your contact information, I can let you know when we find something,” he offered. “Off the record, of course.” 

“Oh ofcourse, and I quite agree, such a sleepy little town as this… it would be so unfortunate to see anything like that happen here, well…. more than it already has ofcourse,” he mused, sauntering a step closer, a bit of a sparkle in his eyes

Echo Springs was dreadfully boring even on the best of days, and Stolas had been itching for some fun recently….

The pretty detective looked like an utterly delicious little plaything to him

“Still, some part of you must find it exciting, I imagine that in a town such as this you’re mostly relegated to… what, finding cats? On a daily basis? A break from the norm is always a good thing once in a wile, wouldn’t you say?”

He took another step, his long hair falling like a little cascade across his shoulder as his head tilted, practically fluttering his lashes at the other man

“After all, if we don’t try something new every now and then we stop growing as people, isn’t that right?”

~*~

Dexter wished he would stop. He never knew what to do when someone was like this. Should he... reciprocate? What would Harry think of that? The world had been different back when Harry was teaching him to fit in, they had never practiced this. 

He let out a chuckle, with enough of a pause to pass for nervous. “That’s not the word I would use,” he said, smiling. (That was right, right? That’s what he should do?) “Besides, I’ve only been here a month. I’m new in town. Dexter Morgan,” he introduced himself, holding out a hand. 

“That’s an... interesting theory,” he agreed. “But I’m a creature of habit, I’m afraid. Even in a new town.”

“Um… no, no I’m alright, but thank you,”

It was a testimant to just how much Lena was impacted by the incident that even falling back on her autopilot responses of politeness and professionalism was getting difficult, she could probably walk through a hurricane and still maintain the strict demeanor of a Luthor, but this….

This wasn’t a hurricane, it was…. a tragedy….

“I see…” she noted a beat later, arms crossing uncomfortably over her chest, her eyes falling-… and… catching on the badge the stranger wore….

“You’re with the forensics unit? I… didn’t know Echo Springs had one of those, are you from a neighboring city?”

That had to be it, the murders must have caused the local police to call in outside help, Lena had never been to the police department in town before but she knew it wasn’t very big, and what would a little sleepy town like Echo Springs need with a forensics unit anyway? It’s not like they were some crime-ridden metropolis of a place, it was hard for Lena to imagine such a specialized team was needed nine times out of ten…

~*~

Dexter didn’t know what to do. How do you offer comfort to someone when you’ve never had any emotions? He might as well have been a mannequin for all the good he was in this situation. (Though if he could just figure out who was behind these deaths... Then he could really be some use. He was an excellent custodian, very adept at taking out the trash.)

“I’m new,” he explained. “I transferred in from a nearby city about a month ago. Echo Springs decided they needed to expand into a forensics unit after...” He trailed off. It was easy enough to put together. “Dexter Morgan,” he said, sticking his camera under his arm and extending his hand. “Blood Spatter Analyst.” 

There were bodies in the woods. Leah knew. She’d seen one up close and personal during her two month stay two years ago, but no one believed her. Why would they? She’d been half dead and talking about the cult in the woods that had spent the time just fucking watching her while she starved to death and the doctor told her parents that she’d clearly lost her mind in the woods. But Leah remembered the day she’d stumbled across the woman’s cold, dead body in the forest – blood dribbling out of the corner of the woman’s mouth and black bruising on her stomach.

Leah paced near the crowd that had gathered at the side of the road by the police yellow tape. The police weren’t telling anyone anything, but they had to know something. The police knew something. The mayor knew something. Someone knew something. Her sharp blue eyes spotted someone exiting the tree line and she stepped to block the car, arms crossed over her chest as she picked at the skin on her elbows. “It’s happening again,” she said, not one for any kind of polite exchange. Leah chewed on her lip and looked at the detective or investigator or whatever he was. “It’s another body. Like – like the other ones. Right?”

~*~

Dexter blinked. It wasn’t often that he ran into someone who didn’t adhere to social conventions. It would’ve been a relief, this directness, if it wasn’t so intense. Everything about her was intense, sharp-edged, even her gaze was piercing. She was going to draw the wrong kind of attention, and if he wasn’t careful, he could get caught up in her storm.

“I -- uh... I’m not really supposed to say,” he said, staring at her. For too long, it was too long, but he couldn’t take his eyes away. “We just started the investigation. There’s not really a lot we know right now.” He tilted his head, glanced back at the body and then to her once more. “Did you know her? Or -- or one of the other recent victims?”

It was always strange, to leave their clearing. The rest of the world was so wide, so noisy. Even standing among the Gentiles now, apart from them, Minnow was stunned by how many of them there were, and how few people Charlie had chosen to save. There were twenty-two Kevinians in the whole world. And their clearing was so small. Why are there so few of us? she thought, as she looked out at the crowd of people.

She knew what the Prophet would say. Because the world was corrupt, and Charlie’s message couldn’t get through to them. Because the world wasn’t ready to listen to Him. But, as she stood there next to the bug-like car, surrounded by Gentiles, she couldn’t help but wonder if they could get through to them. If she sat down and told each and every one of them that Charlie loved them, that he was a teenaged boy, around her age, with eyes the colour of green grass in the spring, and all the power in the world at his fingertips, would they listen then? If they could meet the Prophet, and hear his teachings, would they want to follow him? She knew they would. But the Prophet said that evangelising was wrong, that Charlie’s chosen few were already decided, and they all lived in the clearing. If He wants someone else to join us, the Prophet said, He will tell me.

And so, she looked away from the Gentiles, and at the police officer. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she put them into her skirt pockets. Forensics, he said. Blood spatter analyst. It didn’t make much sense. Blood was blood, wasn’t it? Her gaze flickered, quick as a doe’s, to the camera. But, before she could ask him if he was a police officer or not, because he hadn’t really told her, he asked her why she was there. He smiled, but Minnow didn’t trust it. The Prophet had taught them to watch out for Gentile’s smiles. They were always false. She didn’t smile back. She didn’t like what he was suggesting. Yes, she didn’t want to come out here, but it sounded wrong when he said it.

“Someone is killing folk out here,” she replied, sharper and stronger than before, defensive. “It’s our job to find out who it is, and protect ourselves.” She meant the Community’s job, but she didn’t explain. “I came here to find out more information.” And she looked away from him, and over to the body, barely visible through the trees. “What does a blood spatter analyst do?” she asked, still looking at the body, the leg, of the dead person. “You’re not like a cop?”

~*~

It was so easy for her to say our job, to acknowledge the connections she had. She was a part of a larger whole, she belonged in a way that Dexter never would. Still, he wondered who precisely she meant. The town’s job? Or something more... specific? He followed her hands as they moved, taking in her simple, handstitched clothing for the first time. It was well made, clearly with care, but still had that stark difference from his own store-bought and brightly colored clothes. 

The oddities kept piling up. 

“That’s what police are for, right?” he said, still cheerful as can be. He reached into his car, grabbed the spare battery and spread the parts on the hood of his car to start the swap. “To protect people.” He snapped the new battery into place and arched a brow at her. “They can be a little stingy with their information though. I’m sure there’ll be a press conference later, maybe that’ll answer your questions?” 

She looked away from him then, and Dexter was ready to walk away from this strangeness, but then she spoke again. He felt his throat tighten, just for a moment. Not from fear or awkwardness, but from the anticipation. Thinking about blood could do that to him. “I look for patterns,” he explained. He turned the camera on, flipped through the library and showed her a shot of the body. “Like, you see this here? That pooling? The splash pattern...” He traced it with his fingers on the tiny screen, breath hitching. “That means she bled out here. That she didn’t die somewhere else. That’s useful to us, it helps us figure out what happened to her.” He frowned at the pictures, the strange splash pattern and the inexplicable conclusion he’d drawn from it. “Of course, sometimes it just raises more questions.” 

Rose had heard all about the stories, naturally. She was keeping up with the news. She needed to know whatever she could. She wanted to make sure that she could stay safe; to make sure that others around here would stay safe too. Rose knew this was a bad thing to do; to turn up at a damn crime scene. She had caught a slight glimpse of it all and had began to feel queasy. What was she doing?

She was a nobody. She was an employee in a damn clothes store, she couldn’t help to fight mysteries and crimes. Rose had stumbled back after catching sight of all that blood. She leaned against the nearest car to stop the room for spinning. 

“S-Sorry.” Rose muttered and managed to hold herself up. “What… What happened to her? That looks horrible. Jesus.” 

~*~

“It’s okay,” Dexter said quickly. He was taken aback by her reaction. Is this what it’s like, to feel? he wondered, staring at her with wide eyes. He could hear his foster father’s voice in his head, telling him to keep up appearances, to act like a human being and take care of this girl. 

He slipped the camera off his neck and set it on the car, stepping forward to offer a steadying hand. “Are you sure you want to know?” he asked. “You look a little... green,” he said, smiling awkwardly. She was young, pretty. She reminded him of -- of someone, but he couldn’t quite pull the face forward out of his memories. No, no out of his dreams. Which was ridiculous. He didn’t have dreams, or feelings. And yet, the urge to protect this girl was suddenly intense. 

“Let’s take a walk,” he said, gesturing down the road a bit. “Get away from the crowd, get some air. What do you say?” 

Murder

Now that was something Lena hadn’t expected out of this place

Echo Springs was so… suburban…. in all of the worst and the best ways, yes there were no museums in walking distance, and the biggest book store was only one floor and she had to get much more used to driving than before…

But there were also no sounds of traffic keeping her up at night, no unfamiliar neighbors moving in and out more times than she could count, no news channels that were so flooded with violent crime reports that it was all they talked about…

And yet, now….

And Lena was hardly stupid, there were plenty of things going on in this place- sure, hell just the gangsters alone had some presidence in her mind, a warning to stay away from them if nothing else, but cold-blooded murder… she had really thought she’d get away from that for atleast a few months…

“Oh… I’m sorry,” she mumbled, pulled out of her slight daze and moving away from the car, she hadn’t even realized she had been leaning on it…

“Do you… do you know if this was the same killer as last time? The… woman from a few days ago?”

~*~

Dexter had worked crime scenes long enough to know the type of people that usually showed up. The looky-loos, the gossipers, the rubber-necked middle-aged people who somehow always found a way to warp the tragedy to fit their particular brand of politics. Teenagers dared by their friends and looking cocky until they got an eyeful -- then they just looked green. Moms with strollers who wanted their concern noted, very loudly. 

This woman was different. Dexter wondered for a moment if she was part of the press, since she looked so professional, but no. No she was too sincere. That was the only word for it. She was everything Dexter wasn’t, so genuinely moved by what had happened she looked dizzy. “No problem,” he said. “Hey, uh, do you want to sit down?” he asked, reaching out a hand. It felt like the sort of thing a person would ask, and Dexter was good at pretending anyway. 

“It’s hard to say for sure. We’re still in the preliminary stages of the investigation,” he said, in that calm, measured tone he used when he wasn’t sure how else to sound. “But off the record? It’s... strikingly similar.”

Stolas wasn’t an especially violent person

….But he was an especially nosy person

So when he had heard all the commotion from other visitors to his favorite park, he had followed along with the crowd- unusual as that was for him- and ended up at a crime scene

He had never been bothered by blood or gore or violence, and although he couldn’t say that he had much respect or appreciation for the police, he had to admit that this entire situation was rather interesting to him

“Oh, apologies,” he hummed, pulling away from the car as he glanced up at the other man- the very pretty man

“Are you one of the investigators? What a shame what happened to that poor woman, it seems to be a trend recently though, wouldn’t you say?”

~*~

“Not a problem,” Dexter said cheerfully. It was a forced cheeriness, but practiced enough that only he knew that. He wondered sometimes, what it would be like to actually feel even a fraction of the emotions he faked throughout the day. It seemed exhausting, honestly. 

The man was giving him one of those looks. The kind that Dexter never really understood. Maybe that’s why his tone was so strange, why the other man sounded so chipper while he discussed the murder. 

Or maybe it was deeper than that.

Dexter paused, arching a brow. “Yeah. It’s a real tragedy,” he said, watching his companion carefully. “Hopefully it’s just a big coincidence. As much as I love the overtime, I’d hate for there to be a serious problem here.”

What might surprise people was that Kaz did not often commit murders.Yes, he had before. And yes, he’d do it again if the situation required it. But he didn’t kill unless the situation arose, and it usually didn’t. The other methods he chose to solve a problem were much more… Creative. Threats, bribery, violence, but not death. Death was a permanent fixture. Usually the people he went after didn’t deserve the peace of death, or their blood served no purpose. But there were certainly occasions when murder was the only option. This had been one of them.

Kaz had returned to his home and found an intruder. An intruder with a tattoo of a lion curled around a crown; the dime lions. He’d been shuffling around Kaz’s papers, digging through his information, when Kaz had caught him. They’d scuffled, until he’d knocked the guy over the head with a heavy-bottomed frying pan. He hadn’t intended it to be hard enough to kill, but he wasn’t exactly angry with himself, even if he’d wanted to question the intruder first.

Instead, he’d ended up with a dead body on his hands and called up a member of the Dregs, the one who typically handled cleanup being injured and unable to help. Keeg, the idiot, had carried off the body and decided - with a great deal of foolishness - that a shallow grave in the woods would work. Why he had thought that, Kaz had no idea. He hoped that it would blend in with the other bodies found in the woods; but then, usually those bodies, as far as he’d heard, were quite a bit bloodier. So when a few days later a body was discovered, he knew he had to find out more.

Thankfully, the body discovered was not the intruder’s. That much, Kaz knew. Nothing else about it, though - just that the body of the intruder was about a mile west of the one found. He had picked the pockets of a few of the uniformed officers around the place, had a couple files and such, and was gearing up to see if he could break into the car nearby for more info, when its owner came there. “Of course.” He said, moving out of the way.

~*~

Dexter hesitated, keys in hand. The Dark Passenger was always good at recognizing its own kind. This young man -- a boy really -- wasn’t exactly the same. But there was something deadly in his eyes. A predator of a different species. 

Rather than hit the button to unlock all four doors, he stuck the key into the one closest to him. “Funny how these things always attract a crowd, isn’t it?” he asked, fake smile still plastered on his face. He reached inside for the spare battery, and walked to the front of the car. Setting the camera down on the hood to swap out the pieces. “Especially for people who have never seen death.” 

His eyes slid up to study the man. Who are you? What are you? He wondered what he’d find in the police database if he looked up his name. There had to be a file. He walked with a limp, but there was an arrogance to his gait. He wasn’t hiding the way Dexter did, every second of every day. He stood out in the open and dared the world to challenge him.

Dexter had always enjoyed a challenge. “Dexter Morgan, by the way,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m not a cop, but I’m always willing to talk to concerned members of the public.”

Minnow pushed the blue material down into the water, feeling the itch wool brush sharply against her fingertips, and then let it go, and shook droplets of water from her hands, and dried them on her long turquoise skirt. She looked around at the Community – her stepmother Vivienne cooking lunch in the pot over the fire, her father in deep conversation with the Prophet, Donna Jo weaving a basket from sticks, Deacon Timothy with a hatchet over his shoulder, heading out of the clearing to hunt. A normal day in the Community of Charlie’s chosen people.

But then, suddenly, a sound rent the air – the sound of voices clamouring, people shouting. The Prophet looked to the treeline. Nobody spoke, or moved, until he said, “There must have been another.” Minnow stood completely still, and stared at the trees. The Devil lurked out there. That was who was killing those town folks. The Devil in human form, the Prophet said. Charlie’s enemy, just as powerful, trying to make the Gentiles blame them, trying to take them from their home, from each other. She felt a chill crawl across her skin.

“Deacon Timothy, Deacon Sean, Sister Minnow,” the Prophet said, clearly. Minnow jumped, and turned to him. “Go to the edge of the forest to discover where the commotion is coming from, and report what you have seen.” Deacon Timothy put the hatchet down against a tree, and he and Deacon Sean began to walk. Minnow stood where she was. But I don’t want to go, she wanted to say. I want to finish the laundry. But she knew she had to. It was not a question of want. So, she nodded. “Even so amen,” she said, and she followed the two men to the edge of the clearing.

There was a crowd of Gentiles at the road. That was the cause of the noise. Deacons Timothy and Sean walked ahead, and began talking earnestly to one of the police officers. Minnow didn’t want to stand out in the open like this, alone, so she headed for the car. She had not ridden in a car for over a decade. This one was shinier than the one she remembered from her childhood. She put her hands against the metal. It looked like a giant bug, like a beetle with wheels.

A man spoke, and Minnow turned quickly and blinked at him. “Oh,” she said, stiffly. “Sorry.” And she took her hands away from the car, and stepped back. Remembering the Prophet’s instruction, she said, “Are you a police officer?” He had a badge around his neck, and a big camera in his hands.

~*~

Dexter wasn’t like other people. He was incapable of that, he was other. A predator. And he saw the world, this girl, through a predator’s eyes. She was quiet, standing apart from everyone else. Her eyes trailed after two men, a pair engaged in conversation with some uniformed officers. She had arrived with them, and even now seemed to take her cues from them. Family maybe? Dexter wasn’t sure. Human connections could be... difficult to understand.

But he understood a lot about this girl. He had always taken great care to never appear as the quiet, strange loner he truly was. An instinct for self-preservation guided him, told him that would be a bad idea. People like that stuck out, people who lingered on the edge of humanity. Cops remembered people like that when they were looking at a crime scene or missing person’s report. But this girl, she didn’t try to hide her awkwardness. Maybe she didn’t know how, or didn’t realize how obvious she was. She wasn’t a killer, Dexter could tell that instantly. He always could. But there was something... something very strange about her. Something other. 

Kate is practicing her archery outside somewhere she needs to keep her skills sharp there where targets step up, looking around at all of them she knew it was not hard for her to hit all of them at the same time when she was getting ready Kate hears a noise then takes one of the arrows and points it in the direction. “Come out before you catch an arrow between your eyes.” she said.

~*~

Dexter paused, arching a brow. He was clearly caught -- though not in the worst sense of the word. Still, he wasn’t used to people seeing him while he was out. Lurking in the middle of the night, his Dark Passenger unleashed on an unsuspecting victim. No one was supposed to see the Dark Passenger except those who came under his knife. For a moment, he considered just turning and slipping away. But she sounded serious about the arrow. He took off his gloves and tucked them into his pocket, planting his fake-smile onto his face. “Sorry!” he called, stepping out of the woods with his hands up. “Didn’t mean to intrude, I just got a little turned around out here. You wouldn’t happen to know which way towards town would you?” The lie came easily. And why wouldn’t it? All of him was a lie, all of him patently false and fake. Dexter Morgan, cardboard cutout, that was him. 

The air was thick with the smell of pine. October sun beat down through the trees, casting shadows on the pine needles. Glinting off the pools of blood. They weren’t the problem. He was used to seeing blood, it was in his job description. Dexter Morgan, forensic expert, specializing in blood spatter analysis. He was no stranger to crime scenes. This body wasn’t a particularly bad one. He had seen worse, certainly. The woman half-buried in the pine needles, looked almost peaceful. 

But she was number five in six weeks. That was too many, too fast, even by his standards. And that was the real problem -- this wasn’t his work. He had nothing to do with this, or the other four bodies he’d worked. There was a serial killer in Echo Springs. Another one. 

He snapped another picture with his camera. “She bled out from a single wound to the head,” he pointed out. “But she wasn’t bludgeoned. No, she was... pushed,” he said slowly, making a sweeping motion with his hand. “The killer shoved her to the ground with enough force to crack open her skull.” Which should’ve been impossible given the surrounding area. It was as if she’d fallen out of the sky. The detectives clearly shared his thoughts, and they started to murmur between themselves.