It was late at night when Rana was awoken by a call, Jack being the one behind it to inform her of a new case. This is how she ended up driving her S.U.V down the road at quite the speed, with Will and Jack seating at the back.

All three of them yawned, rubbing their eyes to get rid of the sleep that had come to them not so long ago. Rana especially felt the need to splash her face with even colder water to ensure she was wide awake.

It was not the first time she had a case in the middle of the night but that didn't mean she liked it. With how occupied her mind was during the day lately and her uneasy nights, she did not feel in the mood to deal with anything when she required at least a decent amount of sleep to wake up.

"The victim was found in his hotel room bathtub. He had requested two keys at check-in. No one saw a second guest come or go. Abdominal mutilation and organ removal." Jack informed both of them, Rana occasionally glancing at them from her rear mirror.

Sounds more like an urban legend than the Chesapeake Ripper." Will commented.

"Yeah, like those creepypasta stories one finds online. But either way, we have to check it out" Rana added, knowing how important that was for Jack as well.

The man gave a nod. "The room is sealed off until you get there. You'll have it fresh. "

"Fresh? Fresh as a daisy?" Will questioned, unsure how to feel about that.

"Fresh enough to tell me if it's the Ripper. Then you go back to class."

They continued to talk, passively arguing with one another while Rana watched them in silence, holding back the need to interfere when she felt Jack was being too much. In the end, there was silence in the car for a few minutes before Will decided to ask his next question.

"Expecting a few more bodies after this one?" he asked, remembering how the Reaper worked.

A specific number of bodies, all found in a similar manner and with certain organs gone. After that, there is no clue or anything for months to years. It is unknown if the Reaper moved city or simply decided to stay back and watch the FBI chase their tails in an attempt to catch him and simply fail again and again.

"If it's the Chesapeake Ripper, I am."


The conversation in the car continued, with both Rana and Will commenting while Jack made it clear that he refused to lose the reaper again…not when last time he lost Miriam as well. His finding her arm and all those calls had taken an effect on his mind and sleep, clear as day on his face.

Rana truly hated seeing him like that and had increased their grip on the stirring wheel as she was motivated to catch this damn Reaper and finally allow both Jack and Will to find some peace. She made that mental promise to do so, for in a way she understood Jack.

In her past, she also had someone that had taken things from her…lives…and she wanted him to be found and pay for everything. She was lucky and it took a few months for it to happen, but she still remembered that feeling…the feeling that you are not fully satisfied with just catching them but there is nothing more you can do without breaking the law.

Eventually, they arrived at the Hotel and as they entered the room, they immediately saw the nerd trio doing their work. Jimmy was busy dusting for fingerprints, Beverly combing the bed for hair and fibres, and Brian tweezing something out of a trail of blood that ran from the blood-stained bed to the bathroom in a wake of overturned furniture - the path of a struggle.

"Has anyone touched the body?" Jack asked them, wanting no one to disturb anything until Will did his thing.

"Local police behaved themselves," Brian informed them as Rana looked around, hands by her side.

"Shocking" she replied with sarcasm, considering sometimes the local police got in the way for they did not always like it when the FBI got involved in their cases.

"It is fairly evident the man's dead just by looking at him," Jimmy commented, pointing to where the body was.

" I touched the body. A lot going on with that body. Surgery was performed. And then un-performed. " this made Rana lift an eyebrow.

"Performed and unperformed?" she repeated, trying to understand what exactly she meant.

Brian seemed to notice this for he decided to clear things up. "Surgery was un-performed with bare hands. Sutures were clawed open…I did a little touching."

Jack simply ignored them, not in the mood for them and his former protégé simply rolled her eyes as she entered the bathroom first, with Jack and Will following behind her. Inside, the smell of iron and blood was so strong that her pupils dilated on instinct.

Her muscles tensed and she placed her hands behind her back, one hand holding and squeezing her wrist in an attempt to regain control. Such strong smell of blood and the way the body was mutilated made certain memories flash into her mind…

Men screaming…blood splattering her face…the metallic taste of blood in her mouth… she was snapped back to reality when she felt Will standing by her side, his hand gently touching hers. She blinked and took a deep breath, glancing at Will that seemed to have realised something was going on.

She gave the faintest of nods as an appreciative thanks to him and he formed the faintest of smiles. He was glad he could at least help her, for he understood how it felt to be stuck on the spot because of something in your mind taking control of reality and burying you in the depths of your vivid and dangerous imagination.

He had never seen Rana react that way, but he speculated that even she had her limits and her skeletons that no one knew.

Now back present and after ensuring Rana was okay, Will focused on the body. The man was laying in the bathtub, opened from neck to pelvis, and clothes (pyjama bottoms, t-shirt) were ripped from the struggle. There were two or three inches of blood pooled in the tub.

"Surgery wasn't performed here. Would have been a lot more blood." Will, finally noticed.

This made Rana think, suddenly her mind more alert and familiar with such things. Something that would make sense, considering how extensively she read and read again the cases of the Reaper, being present to only one of them in the past.

"If he's moving his victims, he could be performing the mutilations in the same transport. Which means…" she started and Jimmy continued for her.

"Find the car, find the killer." He said and she gave a nod of approval, exchanging a look with Jack as they got a new lead.

A the same time, Will examined the hand of the dead man. Turning his wrist so he could look under the fingernails when he noticed and also realised something. "He clawed open his sutures."

This piqued Jack's curiosity. "Somebody sew something inside of him he was trying to get out?"

Rana shrugged her shoulders as Beverly spoke next. "Wasn't to get his kidney. Ripper already took it with him. "

"Or her." The female agent corrected her since it was unclear what gender their mysterious reaper was.

"What did he take from his chest?" Jack asked, deciding to focus on the more important current stuff and not the unknown, for now, the gender of the killer.

"Tried to take the heart, but was probably interrupted. It's intact. Traumatized, but intact." Brian Zeller informed them.

Will eventually leaned more forward, studying the open chest cavity as Jack ushered Zeller, Price and Katz outside. Rana followed last and quietly shut the door behind them leaving Will alone.


Once Will was about to snap from his little imagination, reconstructing the latest killing and the killer, he looked towards the bathroom door. For a moment, he saw what looked to be a crème wolf staring at him with red eyes, before a shadow covered it.

Right behind it, stood the huge black stag that suddenly towered over the wolf. As Will looked at it, the image of the stag started to blur but he could see the same red eyes staring back into his very own soul.

Suddenly, Will opened his now yellow eyes he started to breathe heavily but quietly. It took him a moment to realise that Rana's advice had helped him snap out of all of this faster, although it was not exactly a dream.

The yellow in his irises disappeared and he sat on the toilet next to the empty bathtub with the Man's Body opened from neck to pelvis. Rana was the first to notice that Will had finished and walked into the room. She knelt by his side, placing her hand on top of his while looking at him with mild concern.

In the beginning, Will was not that much affected when he profiled the killers but it had been clear that lately…he was struggling. It did not help that she knew he was not sleeping well, or taking all those aspirins to help with his migraines. Something was not smelling good in general when it came to him.

"It's the Chesapeake Ripper," Brian said from the hallway as he was waiting with the others.

"It's not the Ripper." Will corrected him.

"There are too many similarities."

"There aren't enough."

"Knife wounds are cuts, not stabs. Anatomical knowledge, dissecting skills. Mutilation, organ removal. The victim's in clothes, on display. Can I say etcetera, or should I go on? 22 signature components are all attributable to the same killer. "

Rana, getting tired of this argument allowed Jack to enter the bathroom before she closed the door with a loud BANG, earning a smirk from Beverly and a hurt pout from Brian.

"Are you sure?" Jack asked him.

Will shrugged. "More or less."

"Why are you sure?"

"The Ripper left a victim in a church pew using his tongue as a page marker in the Bible he was holding. This isn't that."

Rana understood. "Then what is? Do you have any idea?"

Will gave a nod. "This is a medical student or a trainee. Someone trying to make an extra buck on a back-alley surgery, and it went bad. Actively bad."

This made Jack take a deep breath, exhaling, disappointed. Rana noticed and placed her hand on his shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze at him. "You'll catch the Ripper eventually."

Her words did not seem to work on him. "I want to catch him now. And when I do, you won't have a chance to shoot him. Any of you. Because I'm going to"

This made the other two exchange a look but it was Will, who chose to speak up next. "You can't just jack up the law and get underneath it. "

"Can't I?" he moved his shoulder slightly, indicating for Rana to remove her hand. "How do you see the Ripper, Will?"

"I see him as one of those pitiful things sometimes born in hospitals. They feed it and keep it warm, yet they don't put it on the machines. They let it die. But he doesn't die. He looks normal..."


Back at the morgue, the following morning, the latest Reaper Victims as they were currently called, were being gathered. Some were pushed out of the freezer while their latest guest, from the Hotel, was already waiting for them.

Will and Rana walked into the room, Brian giving the female a side eye as he walked past them. "Can't believe you slammed that door in my face."

Rana rolled her eyes, coming to a halt and placing her one hand on her waist. "Trust me, if it wasn't me it would be Jack or Will" for a moment, everyone glanced at the profiler. "Plus, I didn't slam it that hard. It was a gentle swing"

"It was fairly gentle," Jimmy added, siding with her which only made Brian glare at both of them.

"Anyways. Glad you're here cause not only did the Ripper take his kidneys...he took his heart... ...which he wanted to do in the hotel but was interrupted before he could." He said.

Will shook his head faintly. "Ripper wasn't in the hotel. Someone else was."

"You still think he was ripping that heart out to save a life?"

"Yes."

At the same time, Beverly was sitting across the aisle and was busy studying the crime scene photos of the first victim, Andrew Caldwell "The Ripper painted this picture, for sure. In big, broad strokes."

Rana looked at her before a question popped up in her mind. "Could both victims' organs have been harvested for transplant? I mean, organs do worth a lot in the organ market.

Jimmy thought for a moment. "Could put the organs on a ventilator long enough to coordinate the donation. "

"Hmmm. So with the right equipment next to him, you say he could" she concluded, making a mental note about it.

Brian decided to offer more insight into their latest victims. " In the hotel, both the victim's abdominal aorta and inferior vena cava - the kidney's in-and-out for blood, were entirely removed. "

"They're like USB cables. You keep them intact for an easy reconnect. " Beverly explained, in case anyone else did not understand what Brian meant or wanted to say.

"Did a lot of damage taking it out, probably why he needed a new one."

"Was Mr Caldwell's heart and kidney disconnected for easy reconnects?" Rana asked, connecting the dots.

She might not have extensive knowledge of criminal profiling or human anatomy and forensics, but she could still make connections and see the patterns of a killer, sometimes even of a serial killer. Not always but she had proven herself she could, if given the right amount of information and time.

"Yup"

This made Will think for a moment before turning to her. "We should talk to people who were on organ donor lists then dropped off without getting an organ."

She took out her little notebook and pen, giving a small smile at Will before she wrote it down, to show Jack as well and start their research.

"The other Ripper victims? Organs and their USB cables missing?" she questioned as she finished.

Brian spoke up next. "Some are inconclusive because of the degree of mutilation, but yeah, that's the way of the Ripper rips. "

Beverly glanced at them. "Two different killers, same agenda?"

That was a very good question, Rana knew and she also knew it complicated things if that was the case. One killer was already hard enough to get, now two? That could go wrong in so many ways and so many more innocent people could die in the process until one or both get caught.

"Is the organ harvester disguising his work as the crimes of a serial killer or is the serial killer disguising his work as the crimes of an organ harvester?" she asked, putting everyone in thought as realisation hit them.

Will was the only one, who spoke next. "The Chesapeake Ripper wants to perform. Every brutal choice has elegance and grace. His mutilations hide the true nature of his crimes."


Not long after, Jack also arrived at the morgue. It was clear as day that he had anger and frustration that he could barely contain. That was not a good sign and everyone knew that they had to be careful with what they would say next.

They all stood around the morgue drawers with the latest bodies.

"They're all missing different organs. We were looking at waiting lists for a heart or kidney. Now...We've got kidneys, hearts, livers, stomachs, pancreas, and lungs. One of them is missing a spleen. Who the hell gets a spleen transplant?" Jimmy explained, ending his little speech with a rhetorical question that Brian did not understand.

"They graft on a little extra spleen cause of the increased risk of sepsis."

"It was rhetorical."

Rana cleared her throat at the two men as they immediately realised Jack was glaring at them, and that immediately made them go silent.

"Intestines were the only thing missing from this body," Will said, pointing at their latest body.

"So either there's someone out there with Crohn's disease and short bowels or Ripper's making sausage," Jimmy said, not being able to make a joke.

"He's selling the organs to someone. " Jack concluded.

"We don't even know if these organs are being transplanted in the U.S. They could be exported to China" Brian confessed.

Rana gave a nod. "Most likely China. Chinese have a cultural taboo that restricts voluntary organ donation. You got to die with all your parts, or you dishonour your parents" she said, earning a look from Will, who did not see that coming or knew that information. It was not unknown to the rest, that Rana had a thing for foreign cultures and cultures. "Of course… Killing somebody else for parts doesn't break that taboo."

"How many killers?" Jack asked.

Will answered. "Two. Possibly three."

"And you're confident one of them is the Chesapeake Ripper?"

"At least one of them."

"Are they working together?"

"I don't know"

" Window's closing, Will. How is he choosing his victims?"

"He's met all of them before. The only way he could tissue type them."