Author's note: HEY guys! I"ve had some some ideas pop up in my head and decided to lay them out. This one will have slow updates. I intend to finish Before I Die first. This story contains dark themes, so you have been warned.

Shoutout to Sheri my beta she rocks!

The Dark One's Secret

Prologue

"Shit." I said as I pulled the police "do not cross" tape over her head. There a few feet in front of me was another dead body.

Shit.

This was the fourth body in three weeks that had been found. The investigation had been turned over to me and my partner Jacob Black a week ago when it became an FBI case. All these poor women were being brutally killed and they were no closer to finding the killer. I approached the body, this one was another brunette. She shuddered.

I then leveled with the body examining it. I used a pen from my pocket, to turn the head every which way. The body was naked except for a pair of panties. I then turned to the medical examiner.

"What do you know so far?" I asked as she pulled out her notebook.

"Same as the others: cold, pale, and I betcha my job, no blood," Angela Weber said as she moved around the body.

Shit.

This had been like the others: all the blood from the victims had been removed. However, there was nowhere on the body to indicate how the blood had been withdrawn. It was one of her most harrowing cases.

"Swan!" I heard my partner's voice. He came towards her holding a thermos of coffee. Just what I needed.

As he got closer, he saw the body.

"Fuck, another one?" I nodded as I took a sip. "What about sexual assault?" Jacob asked.

"Going to check for semen when I get back to my lab but it'll probably be like the others, nothing." Angela said as she closed her book.

I sighed. I had no leads, nothing to go on. The cops who found the first three bodies hadn't found anything either.

"There was something different about this one though," Angela said. This caught my interest. Could this be the break they needed?

"What?" Jacob said surprised.

"This one has bruises on her back, and inner thighs." Angela then nudged the legs apart a bit to see the bruising. There, on her inner thighs were huge bruises. It was what could be best described as horrible. I bet that this poor girl had been raped.

The ones on her back looked like someone had taken some kind of object and beat her with it.

"I'll know more when I get to my lab. I'll give you an update when I know more," Angela said as one of her assistants loaded up the body on the gurney.

As she drove away I looked at Jacob. "The deputy director isn't going to be happy about this."

"Hopefully Angie will find something?" That gave me pause. "Angie huh?"

"Bells, it isn't like that." Jacob smirked.

"Sure it isn't Jacob."

***TDOS****

"So, the news hounds are on my ass! Do you have any leads?" Deputy Director Marcus Antonio asked.

We had been called into his office as soon as we had arrived back to the office.

"Nothing, sir. We're awaiting the results of the autopsy," I said in a calm voice. Although it killed me that this was the fourth victim and there was nothing to tell.

"Do I need to get some other agents on the case? Because you two haven't done nothing! Women are dying and we haven't had one lead!" He started pacing his office.

"This victim is different from the rest though." That made him stop pacing and look at me.

"How?"

"This one had been left bruised."

"And you didn't think to tell me that when you came in?" He shook his head.

"I thought it would be best to wait for the autopsy." I always went with my gut and it was best that we waited until Angela was done.

"Get out. Come and let me know after you hear from her."

Both Jacob and I got up to leave. They had made it to their room that they had been given for the case. It was small but they each had a table and a cork board where the past few victims had been pinned up. The first victim was Gianna Martin and so far the only one with blonde hair and blue eyes. She had been left in an alleyway with her blood drained and a pair of panties.

The next two Charlotte Myers and Jessica Stanley were left near an apartment building near the dorms in the same state, both brunette and brown-eyed. No connection to each other but Stanley and Myers had attended the same university together. They weren't friends nor a friend of friends. No connection. I pushed away after examining the pictures. I often studied them wondering if I was missing something or if I kept studying them something would draw my attention.

"Do you think we should drop the case?" Jacob asked her.

"What! Why?"

"I mean this is the third victim who was brunette. The last two had brown eyes. It makes me a little worried for you," Jacob said.

"I can handle myself besides we don't know if this one has brown eyes," I said as my desk phone rang.

"Swan. Okay we're on our way," I said before I hung up.

"That was Angela, she's done."

Jacob and I made our way to the morgue where Angela was moving around in her lab coat. The body was on the table in the middle of the room. Angela looked up when they came in.

"So, I was right, no blood. However, she was sexually assaulted. There were tears in her vagina. However, no semen. Nothing in the anal region. The bruising on the inner thighs were due to the assault. The back however, was hit with a blunt force object in two specific places. I took an x-ray."

Angela then turned on the screen and there was the victim's spine, the bone had looked like it had been bent and shattered.

"She was probably paralyzed and didn't feel the assault." Angela continued. "The cause of death was cardiac arrest brought on by blood loss.."

"Damn it," Jacob said, "just like the others."

"This one was personal." I said. I could feel it in my bones.

I then looked at Angela. "What color are her eyes?"

Angela then went back to the body and opened the victim's eyes. Both Jacob and I looked at them.

Brown.

Fuck.