So, I think a lot of you have the killer pegged by now but I'm hopefully throwing a bit of a twist into this chapter or at least something that maybe you didn't see coming...or maybe you have...I'm not sure, either way I hope you enjoy it!
Sodapop25, Thank you, I promised lots of drama and I hope I'm delivering on that. Look away now if you don't like gore by the way, I'm pretty explicit in this chapter (for me anyway!)
Cheryl24, Maybe I did...maybe I didn't *twirls evil moustache* either way there's still some twists and turns to come first and of course, our boys still need to figure out what the hell is happening because they're in the dark and that gets even darker in this chapter because I never make it easy!
Wolfgirl2013, Thank you, I'm really proud of how this chapter turned out, so with any luck this might be one of the best yet (unless I'm way off base) so happy reading (except probably not because it's not a happy chapter but you get what I mean!)
Mandy, Keep smiling lovely, because you never know what's around the corner, there's always something positive waiting somewhere but sometimes it takes a sweet while to come! Hopefully this chapter can take your blues away too, it's certainly busy if nothing else!
SkittlezLvr79, No, for a killer he keeps a pretty nice (if outdated) place. They could almost have been sharing a pot of tea! Hmm, I do have a bit of twist here...maybe, but I doubt it will shake your rock solid belief in the killer! You never know though…
Jcott3, The plot thickens indeed and I hope it gets so thick in this chapter that it turns into butter! But yeah, still a way to go before the boys figure out what's happening and there's a whole lot of drama waiting to be unleashed before we get to the end, so hold onto your hat!
Minnie1015, I'm hopeless at riddles. No clue at all so I'm with Dean (and you) on this one totally. Stupid killer not saying what he means. Brace yourself though, because there's more of that here, kinda...before it all goes to hell that is!
Daisysakura, Haha, well, I can give you a little hurt Dean in this one, sort of, but mentally traumatised Dean also makes an appearance if that's enough? Always happy to leave on a cliffhanger or a question so happy you're a fan (I imagine that it drives some people nuts!)
Raze Olympus, Haha, well, still not saying anything but I think the clues are all there. But don't count your chickens too soon yet, because we've got lots happening in this chapter which maybe you didn't expect. I'm still trying to keep you guys on your toes!
Cherry619, Your wish is my command! Here is the next chapter and (hopefully) even better it picks straight up from the last one so we're right back into the thick of things again. I know that last one was tense, but in this one I turn it up to eleven. Hope you like it!
Skovko, Well, your theory is probably set in stone by now, but hopefully I still have the power to surprise you so I'm gonna test that out with what comes next. If nothing else though, at least there's some drama/sort of action here, so the pace is stepping up!
RightBackAtItAgain, Well hello there! Thanks for reviewing and I'm super glad it's keeping you on your toes! I love to throw in a few twists and unexpected things and this chapter coming up is no exception (I hope). Plenty left in this story yet though so get comfy!
Rebel8954, Ooh, hope you had a lovely vacation! Thought maybe I had driven you off! Not going to confirm or deny suspicions quite yet but I can say that in this case Mark's son is just Mark's son (IRL). Dean has his own deadbeat father I'm toying with introducing maybe at some point?!
Back to it then...
Everyone's Born To Die
Dean was shunted roughly through into the yard space in a tangle of heavy limbs that made him look trashed but which could hardly be avoided since the bastard behind him had an arm around his neck and was tipping him back so that the copper blonde curls pillowed over the big shoulder but which forced him to walk with a bizarre looking gait.
Bizarre and fucking painful too for that matter because it felt like his spine was being bent the wrong way.
He winced in response,
"Fuck."
His feet were feeling the way slowly for the most part since he was being half forced to look up at the black sky and the gun at his temple was a constant reminder not to try and correct that or consider getting free. It also meant that Dean couldn't see where he was going but rather than spotting the flaw in that concept the gun-toting killer simply tried to prod him on, pushing and grunting in a furious building panic that the copper blonde could feel pumping deep from the guy's chest.
Insane as it was, the brutal murderer was frightened and not making things easier for either of them,
"Shit."
Dean stumbled on a loose chip of stonework in the darkness and nearly lost his footing which made the pinning forearm become more tight but worryingly so to the point it half choked him although his kidnapper barely noticed,
"Did you call the cops?"
"On fuckin' what man? You made me ditch my phone remember?"
"I know it's them out there."
"I can't hear anythin'."
Dean clamped hard on his tongue as he said the words though because up on the brick walls of the buildings that surrounded them, he could see the tell-tale blue haze of flashing police lights which bounced off the surfaces and up into the darkness and therefore meant that the cavalry had arrived. Unless they hadn't and he was totally way off base with it and instead his salvation was an ambulance instead, there to collect some poor bastard who'd had a heart attack or a fire truck come to pluck a cat from a tree.
The Strangler shook him harshly,
"Open the gate."
"You wanna go out there?"
Dean felt his stomach flip over a little bit because the last thing they needed was a paranoid killer blundering back out onto the street and brandishing the gun he was keeping a wobbly hold on but was right on the cusp of triggering in pure alarm.
Dean wet his lips,
"Look man, it's nothin', we were havin' ourselves a nice talk back there okay? So why don't we just go back inside and – ,"
"Open it."
His primeval roar of a bellow blew the roof off or would have done had they not been stood underneath the stars, but either way it underlined the fact the guy was not playing and was about thirty seconds out from losing his entire freaking mind.
Dean lifted a hand up and groped for the mechanism,
"Okay man, geez, no need to lose your shit here."
He fumbled in the blackness and thunked the lock backwards before flinging the little painted gate open wide and wondering how in the world a man of such brutality could have cared for and cultivated such a well-loved patch of earth. In essence it looked like any other city backyard and the type of place a family could have happily hung out.
Maybe once upon a time the garden even had been since it wasn't like the guy had simply fallen from outer space and so therefore it was pretty much entirely conceivable that the lush green patch had once belonged to someone else and that he had maintained it in memorial to them or perhaps on their behalf.
He had mentioned a mother right?
"Move."
Dean was pushed and then forced into walking by the muscled heaving gut still pressed to his spine and so trod a halting path back into the black alleyway with the gun barrel trembling at his temple.
Not good.
Before they even made it to the end of the passageway the fact that the police were there became startlingly clear since the world beyond the alley was perforated by noises, including car doors slamming, hurried footsteps and cop sounds, which the copper blonde knew with the sort of natural intuition that made mother penguins able to find their babies in a million strong crowd.
Buying the documentary channels had totally been worth the money because who didn't love cool animal facts like that?
Inches from where the passageway met the street again Dean planted his heels and refused to carry on and in response to it the killer slammed into the back of him and nearly pushed him over and which made them both huff.
"What are you doing? I said to keep moving."
"No," Dean responded, pushing back against the bulk, "You go out there holdin' a gun to my head like this and there's only one fuckin' way that this shit goes down."
"Isn't that what you want?"
"Not like this."
"But I'm a killer."
Dean grunted as the bigger man tried hard to push him on and then levered himself back as far as he was able to grind them in place for as long as he could, because there was still so much more that hadn't been answered and if the cops blew his brains out then it would never be resolved and twenty five years of mystery would die with him.
He couldn't let that happen.
"Look, hold on a second man."
But evidently the time for talking was long past them because instead of reply the big killer gave him a shunt that propelled them both back out beneath the streetlights and into a blinding and frantic looking world.
Flashing blue patrol cars were blocking the street at each end and creating the bright reflections he had seen on the walls. More police were gathered in a cluster beyond them and parked in front of the building opposite was a tactical truck as well. Its inhabitants at first seemed to be non-existent but peering into the night revealed them scattered all around and crouched behind cars or tucked into doorways with their kevlar helmets on and sniper rifles aimed high.
Dean watched them tense as he was forced into the open and the gun barrels quivered and then focused on him.
Great.
Not that his ass was the target they were after since that notable distinction went to the man at his back who was still pushing his big bulk further from the passageway so that everyone could see them.
Dean kept his hands up.
"Easy man, m' tellin' you not to do anythin' stupid."
Besides for example, kidnapping a cop.
In reply to him the killer snorted a breath out so harshly that it blew an unpleasant breeze over his neck and ruffled the loose and unkempt copper blonde tassels that were creeping their way down towards the back of his neck and which reminded him idly that he needed a haircut.
Dean hated haircuts.
"Drop the gun and step back."
Big broad tones boomed through the night towards them and made his heart leap in happiness because he would have known the notes deaf since they belonged to the bigger and more even of his brothers but were laced with a malice that he didn't often hear.
Uce?
Dean scanned the watching crowd carefully, blue eyes drinking in the myriad faces in the dark then instantly ignoring the ones he didn't recognize before landing on two worried expressions peering back and looking over from the scanty cover of a parked up saloon car.
He blew a breath out in relief,
"Thank fuck for that."
Not surprisingly however the psychotic killer behind him was less impressed with the impromptu wealth of guests, since he tightened his forearm then closed his fingers around the gun grip before barking a reply that sounded out of its depth.
"Step back or I'll kill him. I'm not fooling around here. I promise I will paint his blood on the walls."
"Geez man graphic much?" Dean struggled against the chokehold, "I told you already to calm the fuck down, because no one wins here if they blow your freakin' brains out and that includes you."
It would also include him because shooting the guy outright would run the possibility that a last minute movement might put the bullet through his head or else would carve a hole through his chest cavity.
Neither of those things seemed a palatable option and Seth clearly agreed,
"Put it down man, we're giving you a chance."
Both his brothers looked totally in control of things, pointing their weapons over the top of their shield and glaring across the space like they were cool as cucumbers and weren't simultaneously losing their shit.
Dean knew they would be though.
Knew it and felt it.
Because no way in hell would they have been easy breezy with the knowledge that their teammate had been kidnapped and hauled off and they sure as hell would not have been satisfied by sight of the fucking gun pressed to his head. Dean swallowed briefly and his younger brother saw it and then quickly screwed his face up in fury,
"Let him go."
Roman stepped forward too from his covered position in an instinctive little movement that was fuelled by broiling hate and in response to him the members of the tactical team shifted in a way that ramped the tension right up to boiling point. Dean could practically hear the fucking gunshots but he couldn't let them happen,
He strained against the grip,
"Listen to me an' I need you to listen hard here because I didn't go through this shit to watch 'em pop you in the head."
Forcing the forearm as low as he could make it he flapped his arms wildly then turned his body in the grip so that the chokehold slid instead to a point at the back of him and so that the oversized kidnapper and himself were face to face.
Too fucking close.
Being pressed so close to the features of the big guy was a startling sensation to say the very least because of the white eye that had been eerie at a distance was the stuff of freaking nightmares when pressed in close, but which was also weirdly lulling like it had some sort of pull to it or was perhaps a milky, red rimmed crystal ball.
Dean wet his lips and stifled a sharp intake,
"Trust me, this isn't how you want shit goin' down. I mean there's no fuckin' glory in takin' a bullet to the forehead so I'm gonna need you to try an' work with me here man, alright?"
His kidnapper stared blankly and returned to not blinking.
Perfect.
"I'm not afraid of dying."
"Is that right, huh?"
It wasn't of course so far as he could figure it because the big man was trembling like a fucking newborn lamb and his gaze was fuzzy and bouncing all around him as he took in the police who were staring back in swarms. More strongly than ever Dean bought into the notion that the guy had worked by tag team before, since his bewilderment in the face of the law was palpable and not swaggering like every other killer Dean had ever known. He was big and brawny sure and so therefore when he was murdering and in total control he was a masterful brute but there was also something lost and sort of clueless about him like he was missing a rudder in the form of his second man.
Dean shook his head,
"Don't gimme that crap dude. I mean you're not shakin' because you forgot your freakin' jacket y' know? An' besides I totally fuckin' get it okay man? But that's why I wanna help."
The killer blinked back at him and then snorted wryly,
"You wanna help me?"
Dean bit back that the real answer was a hell no and that in reality he wanted to punch the hideous face because he didn't feel that in scheme of things being honest would much help them and so instead he nodded,
"I wanna help get the truth sure, an' as far as I can figure it you're the guy that knows what happened."
Behind them a boot sole crunched on the asphalt and the killer lifted his gun and pointed it up with a startled blink that in turn made every other weapon in attendance bristle and snap.
Fuck.
Dean hurriedly flung out his hands, turning in the newly loosened grip towards his colleagues and bellowing at every one of them,
"Whoa take it easy, alright? Don't go gettin' all twitchy and shooty on me."
Bewildered looking tactical officers blinked back across the distance in measures of uncertainty that the copper blonde understood since the situation they were embroiled in was not in any training book purely for the reason that it was totally fucked up.
Roman and Seth were blinking back at him also and –
Hold up.
Where in the hell was Mark?
Had they seriously not called him to let him know what was happening and that the suspect he had been chasing for the best part of three decades was finally on the fringes of being genuinely caught?
He spun back around,
"Come on man, give it up now. I mean you wanted me here to get the truth out there, right? Well m' here an' m' listenin' but you gotta be straight with me, you need to give me a real fuckin' name. Who was your buddy the first time you were killin'? Who was the one that strangled those girls?"
He was greeted with a tentative little expression,
"I – ,"
"C' mon man."
Dean bellowed the words right into his face which made the gun press in harder to his temple, but which he barely even noticed he was so pulsed with rage and seconds away from getting the truth of things.
Nothing else even existed except himself and their guy,
"You – you'll make sure he's punished?"
Dean nodded,
"You know I will, so now tell me the damn name."
Feet shuffled behind them and without even looking, Dean threw a hand out to stop the tactical unit from creeping in, because he couldn't risk a sudden shot or their killer getting antsy when he was practically close enough that he could almost taste the truth. He could hear his heartbeat thudding in his brainstem and his blood was rushing and pumping like mad but he managed to fight it long enough to nod his head a little and then wave a hand in a gesture of encouragement in the direction of the hesitant bald headed man.
"Give me a name."
In reply the killer opened his mouth up,
"It was – ,"
He was cut off by the bang of a gun as a single bullet pierced the air out of nowhere and then hammered home a round that carved a path through his skull, tunnelling a perfect little hole through the cranium, the force of which fully blew the brutish killer back and sprayed a gruesome arc of blood beneath the streetlamps that exploded from the wound site right across the captive man.
"Fuck, no."
Dean screwed his eyes tight as the horrible backwash splattered over his face then opened them back up just in time to witness the big burly murderer begin to tilt and fall, toppling like a redwood felled from the bottom in a perfectly straight flop before hitting the sidewalk hard.
His gun skittered off.
Dean blinked,
What had just happened?
He was moving before he even registered that he was, trampling on his numbed legs over the concrete then dropping onto his knees beside the clearly dead man, but for some reason going through the motions of first aid care in checking his pulse and then banging on his chest.
"No, fuckin' no, god damn it c' mon man – ,"
He could feel the splashed blood beading grimly down his face but in his total incomprehension had forgotten that it was plasma and so simply raised his cuff up to try and swipe it off which then merely smeared the stuff further and thicker and filled the cold air with its grim metallic tang.
He continued with chest compressions,
"C' mon, c' mon, fuck this – ,"
Hands gripped his shoulders but he shrugged them off,
"Babe, stop."
He launched to his feet not even hearing the gruff tones and then whirled towards the speechless brigade of onlooking cops, swearing and waving his hands in frustration as he screamed across the block at them,
"Who the fuck shot? Which one of you no good fuckin' assholes was it? I told you not to shoot. I fuckin' told you not to shoot –,"
"Uce."
Roman suddenly encircled him in a bear hug which pinned his flailing arms to his side, but which he then followed up by pressing his forehead into the birds' nest and rumbling tiny soothing words he could barely hear.
"Hey," Seth popped up right in his eyeline and reached in gloved hands to cup the spattered face, "Easy brother, take it easy, we're right here, we got you, we got you."
Dean blinked at him,
"He's dead."
"Yeah, we know man."
"He was goin' to tell me."
"Tell you what?"
But for once Dean couldn't find the words or frankly the ability to do anything beyond blinking since even his legs were wobbling like mad and he felt pretty sure that were it not for the big man draped over his back cat-like then he would have been on the floor and laid out next to the killer like a bone bag.
"Whoa, it's okay."
Seth was rubbing at his face, brandishing a tissue he had pulled out of nowhere and using it to gently mop the blood from his skin in the same way a mother might do to a toddler who had stuck their entire head into a chocolate pudding cup.
Except for the fact that he wasn't wearing pudding –
He was wearing the bodily fluids of a serial killer instead.
"F-fuck."
It was a spluttered out word that went unchallenged as his teammates instead continued to minister to his wounds, not that he had any of them physically speaking but on the mental side of things he felt totally fucked or else like he had maybe been drugged up his eyeballs or been out drinking.
He was totally shocked.
Seth moved the red stained tissue to his sleeve cuffs and then onto his hands which were also painted with blood and the blue eyes watched him do it in a daydream until they barely even noticed when another person thundered up, fresh from having been stood holding the crowd back but obviously having heard the gunshot go off.
Mark blinked around in astonishment,
"My god boys, what the hell happened?"
"That's what we'd like to know," Seth replied bluntly still cleaning his teammate to the best of his abilities and fighting his anger back, "One minute we're all just waiting for the signal and the next thing we know the guy looks like that."
He pointed distastefully down towards the body and the veteran peered at it,
"So that's our guy, huh?"
Roman nodded and loosened his arms a little as his copper blonde brother went back to standing by himself although a little like a newborn deer and kind of wobbly but upright nonetheless and under his own strength.
"Looks like it."
"Bastard."
Mark made a move towards him and for a minute it looked like he would kick out at the guy, but instead he simply squatted down low beside the murderer and then swept off his hat like he was paying his last respects. Maybe he was sorry he'd missed his opportunity to do the deed himself?
Seth blinked at him,
"You okay man?"
Mark chuckled a little but it wasn't a happy sound,
"Never thought I'd see the day this guy bit the dust."
Dean stood in bewilderment and then shook his head a little, except the motion was lost in the thick black night-time light and by the fact that the other cops had moved to crowd around the body, peering down in measures of shock and bewilderment as they drank in the features of pure evil for the first time.
He tried again,
"It – it wasn't just him though."
Dean still sounded almost totally out of it and so he coughed in a sudden harsh clearing of his throat, which brought the attentions back solidly his direction and in particular a frown from the youngest of their team.
"What do you mean man?"
"I mean twenty five years ago," Dean wet his lips, "He was part of a pair."
Come on, give it to me straight now, was anyone expecting our strangler to be blown to bits? And will the boys ever work out what the hell is happening?
You know where to come in three days time...
