The author doesn't espouse violence against women and is taking this moment to remind readers that there will be no serial killer worship tolerated here.
weebs stay the FUCK AWAY
College towns are always the most fun to hunt in.
Especially when they're small. Small college towns are the ones where you can stoke real terror, and the gaggles of students walking with their slow yet hurried pace haven't stopped giving him a thrill. It's quite funny that the cops haven't caught up to him - he's under three different names in the Most Wanted of numerous state police and the FBI themselves. They always suspect someone older, someone, who fits the bog-standard creep, with those Dahmer glasses and basement-dweller zit filled skin. Not someone like him - tall, dark lustrous hair and a smile that can fool seasoned detectives. Lookers like Kylo Ren are rarely killers, after all, and he is a certified lady killer in more ways than one.
Right now, he's nursing a drink at a dive bar in downtown Hanna City. It's one of Chandrila's bigger cities, and its huge population makes it an ideal hunting ground. There are quite a few drunk sorority girls in the bar that night, laughing loudly as they all too transparently flirt with the bartender in hopes of getting a few free drinks. They're all blondes - what a pity, he thinks. Not his flavor, especially not that box dye blonde that every girl named Mackenzie sports. Scruffy dirty blondes are all right with him but it's the brunettes that he really likes. It's a cliche, really - going after brunettes, so Ted Bundy. But what can he do? They're the ones with the most range; most of them tend to fight back and they're very few who beg from the start (he gets done with those ones quickly: begging's no fun if there's not a fight before).
There's a girl sitting a couple of stools down from him - dirty brown, slightly grumpy looking, drunk as hell for sure. He decides to close his tab with this drink and wait in his car a few blocks down; judging by the way she's angrily tapping at her dark phone, it looks like the thing is dead, and she will need to go down the street to hail a cab. He will roll up, casually, offering a ride and laying on his charm thick, offer her some "water" to sober up, and then deal with her as he sees fit. It's a very good thing he has the most generic black car in existence - the Silencer is virtually indiscernible from the ten thousand same cars that drive down the streets of Hanna City. Right as rain, she walks down the street and rounds the corner on Cedar and Garren, raising a hand to shield herself from the street lights that shine square on her face. "Hello," he asks her, his low voice a soothing croon. They're out of sight of any surveillance so he's in the clear. She leans into his open window, using the door to steady herself. Even easier to get in control. "Hey, my phone's dead and I need a ride if that's okay?" she slurs. Beaming, he opens the door, and she falls into the seat. He carefully settles her in and adjusts the seatbelt, retrieving the water bottle in his glove compartment. "Looks like you need some sobering up," he offers her the beverage with a sleeve of peanut butter crackers, which she gratefully accepts and starts wolfing down. They make idle chatter, and she lays her head against the seat rest, heavy eyes closing. Twenty seconds pass as he hums the chorus of Mr. Brightside, and her breathing has begun to slow and even out. Right about in three, two, one. Out like a light.
It's another twenty minutes to the outskirts of the city, and the heavy forests that bleed into the suburb he's passing by are the ideal dumping ground. They're not the kind of forest people tromp through all the time, but there will always be some keen walkers who will take the trail and eventually discover the body. It's also off-season for travelers, so it's not like someone is going to drive past while he's taking his time. They're past city and township limits now, and he pulls up to the side of the forest. Kylo finds out that his latest catch is quite light - how nice, he muses - and he hoists her over a shoulder as he hefts the bag of tools on the other. Once she's properly restrained and bound to the tree, he pulls out the torch and shines it straight in her eyes to wake her up, backhanding her twice for good measure. That wakes her up well, and it takes her a while to adjust to the abject darkness around her, her confusion turning to horror as she realizes the situation she is in. The fear in her eyes sends a thrill down his spine, a thousand-watt smile curling upon his lips.
"Good evening - I thought you weren't going to wake up."
She starts to struggle against her restraints, making him chuckle. "Oh sweetheart, you ain't getting out of these. I'm really good with knots," he sing-songs, waving the torch around, "but it's cute to see you try." She huffs and wriggles a little more, hurling expletive after expletive at him as she struggles in vain to get out of those perfectly tied nautical knots that he's practiced several hundreds of times. It's always the fun part of the deed, taunting and torturing them before their fate dawns on them. The most fun will remain them begging for their lives, and he reminisces over his last few victims as he lazily draws the knife over her bare arms, carving rivulets of blood as he makes his way. She screams whenever he gets lost in a reverie, his knife absently digging further and further into her flesh. "Tsk tsk, princess. It's bad manners to interrupt someone." There's no one to hear her scream but him, and he will savor every moment of it. "You know," he begins as the knife shifts closer to the center of her chest, "I'm known to steal hearts on the regular. I'm sure you wouldn't mind me adding yours to the collection, would you?" She screams louder and he winces as the sound hits one of his eardrums with full force. "Ooh, you've got a set of lungs on you, princess. Wonder if I should take those too." She begins the usual set of pleas that follow, begging him to take whatever he wants - money, sex, even a finger or two - but leaves her to live, and she won't tell. I doubt that. Too many killers before him have granted those requests to their victims, ultimately causing their downfall. He's committed to not let his spree stop until he wants to.
Her screams still aren't enough to excite him, so Kylo decides to skip phase 2 of taking what he wants and chooses to head straight for phase three. The death is rather swift and painless - he's done torturing for the night - and the slit on her throat gushes blood like an angry fountain, painting her body in dark swathes of red. As the final light goes out of her eyes, he takes the knife to the center of her chest and makes a clean incision, big enough for his hand to fit in. He pulls his gloves off and his fingers find purchase in her body cavity, scrambling a bit until he finds her still-beating heart. Kylo slowly pulls it away, severing each artery and vein that holds the organ there, his fingers coated in the same warm, sticky blood that covers the front of the girl, each gurgling breath fainter as he severs her heart from her body. He's always prepared for this though, with his waterproof bomber jacket that can be cleaned with a simple wet wipe. Not like they'll have any DNA to work off. He is rather careful about things like that - always wearing gloves and when he decides to have a little more fun, always wearing a condom. He's spontaneous, not stupid. Besides, by the time they find her body, any possible fingerprints left in that deluge of red will be long gone, rotten away with the blood itself. There's a small cooler in his bag, and he carefully places the heart amongst the ice before he puts the bag in the trunk and cleans himself off thoroughly with rubbing alcohol wipes, setting the wipes on fire and watching them burn to ashes before he leaves. With all that evidence destroyed, he's free to go, waving a jaunty goodbye to the body still secured to the tree. Two hours into his drive, a cop does stop him, but it's only a routine check and he's sent on his way with a cordial smile. He'll toy with that heart all he wants tomorrow, but he first needs to shower, sleep, and finish his day at work.
After all, all play and no work makes Kylo Ren a dull boy.
Rey's woken up by that god awful ringtone.
The new spate of killings had already kept her up, and the insomnia is only an obstacle when it comes to getting a good night's sleep. Given that she's a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, her work hours are bound to be whack, but these killings have only made it worse. "Kenobi."
"We have another body," says Poe, her boss. Fuck. "Where?" she asks as she quickly throws on a jacket and starts shimmying into her work pants. "Outskirts of Hanna City, the Kloss forests. CSU's already on the scene and so are two Chandrila PD officers. Finn and I are on our way."
"Be there in twenty." She cuts the call, quickly lacing her shoes in and flinging her bag on her shoulder as she practically flies out the door. Maybe Dex's will be open? She desperately needs a coffee. The sky is still dark, the first rays of dawn obscured by the heavy cloud cover in this part of the country. It looks like it's about to rain, which is only bad for the crime scene techs. Given how early it is in the morning, Rey gets to their location two minutes earlier than expected, Finn and Poe's car pulling up as well. "Hi, guys." Rose Tico, one of the crime scene techs, greets them with a wave and a grimace, while flashes from Kaydel's - the other crime scene tech - camera go off loudly in the background. The five have been friends since high school and by some strange force have ended up working on this case together. "It's just as bad as the others," Kay tells them as she moves aside, giving Rey a full view of the scene.
If this had been her first crime scene, she would have thrown up the nonexistent contents of her body and vowed to transfer to an admin department. The woman's body is bound to the tree by a series of ropes and knots, and there is the vacant look of horror frozen on her face. Rey's eyes travel down to the slit across her throat, the stark white of her near-frozen body contrasting with the blood-rust that marks the spot. She moves closer, gloves on, and starts examining the wound - it's cleanly done, probably by a pretty sharp knife, like the others. She can hear Finn and Poe murmuring and taking notes in the back as she examines the other scars on her arms; the sharpness of the wounds is consistent with the one on her throat, and she moves down to the one very obvious, very gaping one on her chest. It's in the shape of an upside-down sword, like the others, and the marks have been made in singular motions. Rey does not have to peer further to know what just happened there. "The heart's gonna be missing, isn't it," she says to her colleagues. "Given how consistent the signs are with the other crime scenes, I'm saying yeah, it will be," Finn replies. They know so far that the pattern of cuts on the chest is this person's calling card, and based on the profile they have constructed, it's probably a male in his twenties or thirties and is well built, with most of his victims being college-aged women. However, given the distance between all the crimes, this man is certainly not in college. "There's a ton of bars we're going to be interviewing at," Poe tells them as they make their way back to their cars, nodding at Rose and Kaydel as they do, the latter handing them coffees. "Didn't give it to you earlier as I didn't need you all puking all over that crime scene," she quips. Rey takes a deep whiff of the coffee but there's something else that she smells as she consumes the beverage. It's cologne. A men's cologne, at that. "Hey," she calls across the scene, some heads perking up, "anyone here wearing cologne?" They shake their heads, and she files that away mentally as a possible identifier.
"What kind of cologne, peanut?" Finn asks as they linger at their cars, drinking their beverages. "It's a heavy musky smell that I smelled as I was sniffing my coffee," she explains, "like the kind a man would wear. It was too faint for it to be recent, which is why I asked. Can colognes even linger that long?" At that, Poe nods. "Some fragrances can linger up to 24 hours," he tells her, "so we know what our unsub may smell like now." It's admittedly a very thin lead but hey, Richard Ramirez's horrific breath helped identify him. Drinks done, the trio makes their way back to the central office back in Hanna City where a gaggle of reporters has gathered on the footsteps, Director Holdo looking stoic as she fends the paps off with a series of carefully rehearsed answers. "Director, is it true that another body has been found?" Motherfucker, how does word travel this fast? Poe looks at the two of them, probably wondering who at the scene ratted them out to the press and how to get the reporters off their back, who seem to have joined the dots. "Agents, are you coming from the scene of the crime? Did the anonymous tip help you find it earlier than before?" Tip? A chilly realization runs down Rey's back as she connects dots of her own, Poe smoothly covering for her off-guard looking face. "The tip called in was an immense help," he says, "and while the individual has not identified themselves clearly for safety purposes, we thank them for their eagle eye and their help in catching this notorious fiend. We are working with Chandrila PD and Hanna City detectives to ensure that the victims are brought to justice." With that out, Holdo dismisses the rest of the reporters, their press secretary doing the rest of the work as the four of them make their way into the building. "Good thinking, Dameron," Holdo comments as they file into the elevator, "I do need to speak to the three of you before you head back to the BAU floor." Once they're in the confines of their office, Holdo takes her seat and picks up the freshly-prepared cup of coffee sitting on her table. "So, what did the three of you find?"
"Director, this crime scene too bears similarities to all scenes connected to the unsub and while we are waiting for CSU to get back to us with the autopsy results, we're confident that this vic too is missing her heart, with the same inverted sword-like incision on her chest," Finn says. "Agent Kenobi picked up a smell at the crime scene that fits with a men's cologne and did not belong to anyone on the scene. We are adding that to the profile of the unsub but will not be making it public, understandably." She leans back and nods, letting out a sigh as she massages her temples. "Thank you, Storm. You three know well the pressure we are facing from the public to catch this killer. He's already hit this state twice and also killed five others in Ajan Kloss and four in Takodana. And he hasn't slipped up once." Believe her, they know. This killer is the worst thing to happen to the Republic since James Snoke's spree, which ended only thirty years ago. But unlike Snoke, this guy is determined to be meticulous. And unlike Snoke, he is openly taunting them now.
"He has to have called in the tip," Rey speaks up. "It was only us and two Chandrila PD detectives with CSU on the scene. If we were informed of where the body was this early after the murder but just late enough that any evidence set in that blood would have rotted away, only someone who knew that fact would have called at just that time. Besides, it's too early for anyone to be on a trek through that trail."
"Director, I feel like that's a fair probability," Finn says, backing her up. Bless the man, he always has her back. Holdo dismisses them after a committal hum, and they take the stairs as they make their way down to the BAU floor. "Armitage Hux must be on her ass for her to complain about public pressure," Poe says. As chief of police for Chandrila PD, Hux is known to be a hard taskmaster and to also make big claims in public from time to time, which doesn't necessarily bode well for them this time, if ever. "Hey guys, CSU dropped off crime scene photos," Mitaka tells them as they make their way to their seats, and right now, all Rey wants to do is go back to her apartment and sleep until she feels alive again. Given the number of photos on each of their desks, that isn't even remotely an option, so she opts to slump in her chair and close her eyes, trying to push those images in her head aside to form any useful thoughts.
She doesn't need those CSU photos to remind her of the horror on the woman's face.
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