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Clarice's hand reached for her gun before her eyes opened. The first blare of her alarm system and the bang from downstairs brought her to her feet, and she was quick to leave her bedroom with her gun trained out in front of her. She could see the front door halfway open, the doorknob and locks busted, and the rug was bunched in the corner. Whoever tried to break in had left as soon as her alarm system had blared, flashing lights around the entryway.

When Bella's bedroom door opened, she motioned towards her own bedroom. "I'll check the house. The alarm company is going to call my cell. Tell them someone tried to break in. Tell them to send over a squad car." She waited until Bella hurried into her room, baseball bat in hand, and heard the ringing of her phone on her nightstand.

With her gun still ready to fire, Clarice descended down the stairs and cleared the main floor before punching in the code for the alarm system to turn off. The lights in the foyer flipped on, and she did another sweep to check for anymore evidence. Her eyes scanned up the doorframe and stopped at a single speck of blood speared just inside the lock mechanisms. Her grip tightened on her gun once again as she reached out to the door with her foot. With a light tap, the door swung fully open and allowed her to see the front side.

In enough blood to still be dripping down the door, the message was clear. "Bella!"

Bella hurried out of Clarice's room with the phone still pressed to her ear, but she nearly dropped it when she saw what Clarice had discovered. A pile of cut beer cans sat on their doorstep and blood covered the front door, creating the written message - She's next! Below the words, a poster of the Roman Goddess with her same name was sliced open where the wrists were. The blood that had been used to write the words had also been used to paint blood pouring out of the wrists and more of it had been speared between the goddess's legs.

"Tell them to send the FBI, and call your father."


Bella sat on the stairs staring at the display that had been painted on the front door when she heard the sliding glass door in the back open up. After getting off the phone with Hannibal, she came back down and felt the emotions building suddenly go numb. The wait for reality to sink in was only delaying what she was dreading, but she couldn't seem to snap out of the haze she was in.

Clarice was crouched in front of her, trying to get her eyes to look at her or at anything other than the door. She didn't want to touch it or close it for evidence reasons, but she was tempted to just say to hell with it. She looked around the stairs when the back door opened to reveal Hannibal. He had changed his appearance slightly since their front door was on display, but she knew he would have to hide upstairs before Delia and her team members arrived.

"My God." Hannibal breathed when his own gaze took in the assault to the door. Despite how horrific the depiction of Bella was, the scent of the blood caught Hannibal's attention most. "It's Will's."

"What?" Clarice asked, turning to look at him staring at the door.

Hannibal took a deep breath. "The blood. It's Will's. It's not fresh though." He turned to Clarice and Bella. "Have they gotten the DNA back on the blood at his apartment?"

"No, they're still backed up on the last victim." Clarice sighed before her attention moved back to Bella. "Hey, baby, I need you to focus and come back to me. I know this isn't easy, but I need you to snap back."

Hannibal kneeled beside Clarice. "She's in shock." He took Bella's chin into his fingers and moved her face towards him. Her eyes were dull, but they finally pulled away from the drying blood. "It would be better for statements if she stayed like this until the FBI is done here."

Clarice pulled Bella against her, laying her daughter's head on her shoulder. "A serial killer just threatened her with rape and murder on our front door. The sooner she comes back to herself, the sooner she can protect herself again. I don't give a damn about statements or who comes walking through here. I'm not just going to leave her defenseless to make somebody else's job easier."

"She needs time, Clarice." Hannibal whispered. "We are right here. Both of us. Nothing is going to get to her here." He cupped the back of her head comfortingly. Their safety was his reassurance while Bella had been Clarice's only silence since he left. Now that the outside world was threatening her lamb yet again, the voices were probably circling the horizon. He could hear the door creaking open to Mischa's room in his memory palace. "The shock will run it's course. She should be fine in an hour or two. Keeping her in front of this isn't helping her though."

"Who's doing this?" Bella asked. Her voice sounded haunted, and it pained Hannibal's ears.

Hannibal gently prodded her out of Clarice's arms and into his own before carrying her towards the living room sofa to face away from the front door. Clarice was on his heels, quickly wrapping a blanket around Bella's shoulders. "My little bird, you said yourself that the young Krendler made the threat to harm you sexually."

Bella sat on the couch like a zombie, but her mind was clearly in another place. The nail of her index finger ran along the vein of her arm, ending at the wrist. "He wouldn't know about Bellona."

"About the blood sacrifice." Clarice murmured before looking back at the front door. "He wouldn't think to even search that."

"There are only a few who would." Hannibal stated. He squeezed Clarice's hand with his. "Send her up as soon as you can. I'll see if I can help her navigate back to herself." He headed for the stairs, pausing only at the door to take another sniff at the blood. His first inhale was still correct. The blood may have been dripping like paint slathered onto a wall too thick, but it was Will Graham's. Some of the blood smelled fresher in places compared to others, and that sent Hannibal up towards Clarice's room with a puzzle to solve.


Hannibal waited in the bedroom for almost an hour before the agents allowed Bella to come upstairs, and a part of him wanted to have a word with them about keeping a child up on a school night. Bella looked like she could have laid down and died in her state of shock, and Hannibal was running thin on patience when the image continued to fester until she opened the door.

The light from the foyer flooded in just past Clarice's wardrobe and quickly evaporated when Bella closed the door behind her. He watched from the chair in the corner, hands steepled under his nose, as Bella sat down at the foot of the bed and stared ahead like she did to the door. Some of the shock had worn off. Her dull eyes now had a thick moisture to them, and he knew her break back to reality was not far from his grasp.

"What did they say?" He asked quietly, knowing that a swarm of FBI agents were still processing downstairs and speaking with Clarice.

"Delia still thinks you're behind all of it." Bella whispered. "The use of the poster oozed too much class and education to her for it to be anybody else. She's only got tunnel vision for you. They aren't going to find the guy doing this."

Hannibal caught her eyes with his. "Tell me, Bella. The display on your front door, while disturbing, put you in a catatonic state that has left an imprint on both your mother and I. What about that image frightened you the most? Was it the bloody written message or the depictions of this Beer Can Killer's plan to kill you?"

Bella gulped. "The person doing this, you believe he is actually after you. If he is willing to do that to me to get to you, what does he want to do to you? What would he do with Mom if he failed with me? Even with his crimes, he has fixated on killing the girls like me from the inside out. Whoever he is, he probably plans on making it as painful for me as possible. But, I'm not the one he hates most."

Hannibal analyzed her assessment, pondering those questions himself. "That's very likely. Does that scare? The thought of that kind of physical pain being inflicted on you because of me."

"I'm scared that he might be sick enough to save me until there's a time where he can force you to watch, force Mom to watch. Or for a time where he has all three of us, and there's nothing we can do to stop it." Bella confessed, hugging herself. "I've learned to handle a lot, but I couldn't handle going through all of that while knowing you and Mom were watching."

Hannibal shook his head. "I will never allow that to happen to you, Bella."

"You might not have a choice." Bella whispered, the large tears now building in her eyes. "He certainly isn't looking to give me a choice, and it's just for being your daughter. I didn't do anything, and a serial killer is targeting me for rape and murder. He tagged my house. We can't control everything."

"I will not accept the possibility of him touching you." Hannibal argued. He kept his voice low, but yelling the words would've held the same impact. He stood from the chair and moved it so he could sit in front of her at the end of the bed. He didn't reach out to touch her, and he feared that this incident would result in Bella deciding she wanted nothing to do with him. With what she was being put through, he wouldn't blame her. "You're right. We can't control everything, but I can control my actions. I can prepare for a situation like the one you described. We can't control what happens, but we can prepare for as much as possible. I am prepared to die to save you if that's what the situation calls for. There is no limit as to what I would do to protect you."

Bella reached up to wipe a rollaway tear from her eye with the sleeve of her shirt. Her hand trembled, and she quickly tried to hide it by hugging both her arms back against her stomach. "I just want to go."

Hannibal nodded once. "When this is all over, you can go anywhere you want. Just name the place."

"No, I want to leave." Bella reiterated. "I want to get on a plane with you and Mom and go to wherever it is our new home will be."

"You still want that life." Hannibal breathed, relief flooding through him.

Bella frowned, wiping at her eyes again. "Don't you want it?"

Hannibal wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into the cradle of his arms and holding her against his chest. "Of course, I do. I would love nothing more than to fly away with the two of you to paradise, but I have a feeling this killer of ours isn't going to give up so easy on us."

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