A/N: Merry Christmas everyone! Thanks again for reading and for the reviews!

Chapter 26

After Greg and Nick left the A/V lab, Will pulled out his cell phone and made a call down the hall to Director Robinson. Nick and Greg could leave for work related business as long as Brass sends in the CSI request directly to his office. They also had to be subjected to a pat-down search before leaving the building.

He relayed that information to both Nick and Brass before turning to Archie. In front of the A/V tech were computer monitors. On one were the lab security footage in four separate view boxes. The box for the evidence locker was blank. On the other was source code. "The security footage is missing?"

"Not missing. Deleted. We were hacked."

"Hacked? From an outside source or internal one?"

Archie was typing away at the keyboard as quickly as possible while saying, "I don't know, I haven't been able to track the source code back to an IP address yet. They could be using a VPN–" At seeing his confused look, he explained, "A Virtual Private Network? It's a secure encrypted network; anyone can obtain one and use it on their home routers or laptops to encrypt their data and prevent tracking. The only way I can see anyone hacking our security system is from the inside because we don't access any outside Wi-Fi networks. This place is like a faraday cage. No outside Wi-Fi. Everything's internal…"

That got Archie thinking. He noticed. "What is it?"

"Social engineering hacking. The hacker could've gotten someone to bring in the malware either by coercion, blackmail, or accident. They get you on the street, asking you to buy their music CD, or they give one out as a free promo, saying just take a listen, go to the website to rate the music and you could win a cash prize. That's where they get you. People always want free money. The mark, aka, the unwitting crime lab tech, goes to rip the music files on their home laptop or computer only to be hacked. The hacker gains access to everything. Calls up the mark and blackmails them to bring the CD into the crime lab to let loose the malware into our network. Or the idiot brings it in here to rip the CD. Either way, the hacker's in the wind. He could've been in a car in the parking lot or miles away. The moment he saw that the exploit opened a backdoor into the network…"

"Bob's your uncle. You've been hacked. Have a nice day?"

"Basically, yeah."

"And there's no way to trace where it came from?"

Archie gestured to the code he'd been typing and said, "I can trace the malware back to the infected computer it originated from, but, unfortunately Grissom, I'm not going to be able to find the hacker."

He started out of the A/V lab as he told Archie, "Do it."

"Already working on it. I'll let you know the moment I find the source."

Pulling out his phone, he called Kevin and left a voicemail about the hack. He also called Brass and told him the same. Will headed down the hallway towards his office. As he spotted Wendy Simms in the DNA lab, Mandy from Fingerprints nearly collided with him. In her hand was a printout. "What's the hurry?"

She handed him the sheet and said, "Were you testing me?"

He took out his reading glasses and slipped them on as he looked at the sheet. "No," he said as he read over the fingerprints results. He'd given her the prints he'd lifted off the whiskey bottle from his house. There were two matches. One set belonged to Sara and the other wasn't his.

"What did you print that had Francis Dolarhyde's fingerprints on it?"

"A whiskey bottle from my house."

Mandy's eyes widened in surprise. "How did that happen?"

"I suspect that someone obtained his prints and planted them. Check for any residue—"

"I already did. There would be a trace of the adhesive used if the prints were transferred and planted. There isn't."

He thought about that. Gelatin could be used to form a fingerprint. No adhesive required. Simply apply pressure and—"Gelatin?"

"Possibly. It wouldn't leave behind a trace. But, okay, where did someone get a long dead serial killer's prints to begin with? To use gelatin you have to have a mold—"

"Or a 3-D printer." Thinking back to what Archie had told him, he told her, "Our network's been hacked."

She gapped in surprise then said, "And Dolarhyde's fingerprints were put into the index after his death. They accessed AFIS."

"Once they obtained an image of the prints, all they had to do was scan them into a 3-D printer to make a cast and then use gelatin."

"No other options?"

He shrugged, saying, "Magic?"

She almost smiled as she said, "Yeah, magic," with a teasing smirk. "Most likely scenario." Mandy went to step back down the hallway to print lab as he reached out to stop her.

"Wait. Do me a favor. Monozygotic twins share DNA, chromosomes, and the same physical characteristics, meaning they have a high class/type similarity in their fingerprint pattern. Correct?"

"Yeah, they're not identical prints but they're a damn close match."

"Run a search for any 'damn close matches' to Dolarhyde's prints. Start with former military personnel from the 1960s and 70s. I'm looking for a possible Vietnam Vet."

Mandy did smile then as she headed back towards the print lab. "You got it."

There was another option. His main suspect was Zephyr Dillinger, who could have items belonging to his brother that held his fingerprints. Until he had more evidence, he didn't want that information getting out, especially now that he knew that the crime lab's network's been hacked. The last thing he needed was any of this to get out to the press.

Stepping inside his office, he immediately picked up the file Kevin had given to him earlier pertaining to Mrs. Sherman's death. He sat down at the desk as he thought about Dolarhyde's fingerprints on the bottle of whiskey along with Sara's. He understood planting Dolarhyde's prints. It was to rattle and confuse him, especially since Zephyr wasn't expecting him to already suspect him as the killer.

This whole thing was spiraling. Nathan and Ellie on the run. Zephyr Dillinger breaking into this house and planting fingerprints. The lab was on lockdown. An AK-47 stolen from evidence and given to Nathan to use in his mass shooting. Nathan was being helped. Helped and used at the same damn time. Zephyr was good, he'd give him that. But he had to be better.

There was always someone smarter. That's why he couldn't have a mind locked inside a box. No walls, no limits, no nothing but the wide-open dark void of unlimited knowledge. He had to be smarter. Know more. With the lab on lockdown and nowhere to go, he needed the void. He needed to remember who Francis Dolarhyde was. He needed to remember the Great Red Dragon.

He rubbed his head, feeling the painful throbs of a migraine, as he picked up the phone and called Sara. Before she headed back home, he wanted her to pick up Hank. He also needed their dog back in their house. In fact, they needed more dogs. A whole pack of them.

As the phone rang, and rang, and rang, he opened the desk drawer and took out his migraine prescription before grabbing a bottle of water from his mini fridge.

The call went to voicemail. "Hey, Sara. It's—…" Will? Gil? "It's...me. We, uh, we have a situation at the lab and I can't leave right now…"

He heard the distance in his tone and felt how far away he was from his own feelings. He hadn't called her darlin'. Will didn't call her that. Molly never had a nickname either. He realized because, despite his love for her, he never let himself believe it would last forever. She was never really his.

Closing his eyes, he willed Sara to answer the phone. He needed some sort of reassurance that she'd be there. That she would forgive him for going this far because he had to go this far. He had to put aside the part of him that was Grissom. He needed the fear. It helped him to see, and to dream.

Zephyr had to be stopped.

Right then he feared Sara more than anything. She already left him once. With nothing inside reminding her of the man she'd fallen in love with, he had no doubt she'd leave him again. He'd told her already; there was no place in Will's mind for the things he loved.

Yet, he needed a glimmer of hope, for Gil's sake. A tether to the world he once knew and wanted to hold onto while he left it for the darkness. He needed to hear her voice, feel her reassuring touch—...

…Her fingertips…

For my own prints not to be on the bottle at all meant that it had been wiped clean before the prints were planted. Then how did Sara's prints get on the bottle? She thought I'd left it on the table and hadn't touched it to put it away before I'd gotten home. Sara had been asleep. She said someone had been in the house. Her prints had been planted on the bottle while she slept…Zephyr had been in our bedroom.

"You wanted me to know how close you were. You'd gotten close enough…to touch her while she slept…—"

Beep!

Realization dawned as his anger snapped. "Son-of-bitch!" He chucked the phone across the room at the fish board. It hit the picture of Zephyr Dillinger and fell to the floor, breaking the back casing off as the battery bounced out and slid into the floorboard.

Putting his head into his hands, he'd realized that he'd spoken all of that into her voicemail. She would hear it. Hear what Zephyr did. He pushed the breath out of his chest, trying to ease the anger down as he eyed the items on the desk. After downing the medication with the whole bottle of water, he picked up the Sherman casefile and went over to the sofa and laid down. Once his head stopped hurting, he would read the file.

Sara entered the PD behind Kevin who'd been waiting outside for her. He didn't say much on the phone, just that he wanted her help at the police department. She left Doug at the FBI Field Office, telling him that Agent Collins needed her, and that she'd be back in a few hours before grabbing up her stuff and walking out on him. Doug hadn't looked happy, but how he felt was no longer her concern.

As they walked towards Captain Brass's office, she asked Kevin, "Why did you assign Doug to me?"

Kevin shook his head, saying, "I didn't."

"He said that you wanted him to help me track down my brother."

"I told him that was our main priority and that you were assisting. He asked where you were, I told him my office. If he took that as meaning I wanted him to help you…" he shrugged. "I honestly have no idea how to use them, other than putting them on the taskforce. Doug volunteered to take nights. However they want to work it out fine with me, as long as Nathan and Ellie get found." Turning to her, he asked, "Speaking of which, find anything?"

"Not yet."

They stopped outside of the office door as they spotted Brass in his office. He was on the phone. Kevin was watching through the glass door, waiting for Brass to end the call, as he told her, "One thing I know from profiling is that with these types of cases—and from what Gil's told me—is that the past carries weight. A lot of killers place a lot of meaning in their past. Their trauma is connected to childhood events, places, things…So, if we know his past, we can predict his future." His eyes were on her as he said, "No one knows more about Nathan's childhood than you. He's already revealed a lot to us about it, from the dreamcatcher to the poetry book. What can you tell us about those items?"

Sara felt the unease once again as her stomach fluttered and twisted. She felt sick with nerves as she thought about her brother and those things he'd had. "Our mom used to make those dreamcatchers. One for the both of us. We helped her. Sort of a…family project. The poetry book I got for him as a gift. I even wrote a note in the original one that I found in the storage unit."

Kevin gave a nod as he thought about what she'd told him. He then said, "You're a common denominator in both. If he believes this to be a family affair, and that you're connected to all this…He'll try to reach out to you, if he hasn't already."

"I haven't received anything—"

"It might not be directly. It could be something in the evidence. Something he needs you to find in order to find him." Kevin straightened as he reached for the door.

Brass was off the phone and motioned for them to come in. They entered the office and once Kevin had the door shut behind them, Jim said, "Nick and Greg are enroute to a possible location of the meth lab. I just got off the phone with Detective Curtis. She and Narcotics Detective Perez will head-up the SWAT team to take it down."

Kevin said, "Once we get down here, I'll follow up. Are they both here?"

"Yeah."

She asked, "Who's here?" since Kevin hadn't told her much.

"We have Richard Sanchez and Detective Bill Nowlins in separate interview rooms."

"What? Why?"

Brass answered, telling her, "The crime lab's on lockdown. Only Director Robinson or I can grant someone to leave until we find out who stole an AK-47 out of the evidence locker. That weapon was the one that Nathan used during the massive shooting. So far, we have two suspects."

"Rich and Nowlins."

Brass pointed at her, saying, "Bingo. This is to be friendly and—"

"Non-combative," Kevin said as he nodded. "I understand. Until we know more, they're not under arrest and are free to leave at any time, but…we want them to give us what they can."

Brass stood as he looked at her and said, "What're you doing here?"

Kevin answered as he explained his reasoning for calling her, "I want her to watch both interviews. She not only knows the procedures, but if any of them had contact with her brother, they might say something that only she might pick up on."

"You think my brother gave one of them a message?" she asked.

Kevin shrugged, saying, "I don't know. He could've. Hell, I'm just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. We might get something. We might not. Either way, it's worth a shot. If you don't want to do this—"

"I didn't say I don't want to do it. I'm just wondering how we're going to do it."

"Well," Brass said, "we can interview them separately with you invited to both."

Kevin said, "I got a better idea. Put them in interrogation rooms. Ones that share an observation room. Sara can be in there, watching and listening."

"Yeah, okay," Brass agreed. "We can broadcast both to an observation room for your viewing pleasure. Care for some popcorn? A soda?"

She resisted the urge to smile at Brass as she left the office. Going to an observation room, she waited as Brass turned on the monitors and pressed record on the cameras for both rooms. Her cell phone rang; it was Gil. Not being able to talk right then, she silenced the phone as Brass left the room. Through one observation window she saw Detective Bill Nowlins sitting at a table. Bill was annoyed as he leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. There was no union rep with him. This wasn't an official interrogation despite them using the rooms. She turned around and saw into the opposite window ballistics expert Richard 'Rich' Sanchez. He was biting his thumbnail, right leg shaking under the table. Rich was nervous.

Brass entered the interrogation and sat across from Rich. Kevin entered the other room and stood at the end of the table where Bill sat. Two interviews, two different tactics, but only one nervous suspect. Rich Sanchez. Turning the volume up on the speaker, she listened to Brass and Rich.

Brass sat in the chair as he gauged the young man's reaction to being moved from an interview room to an interrogation room. He suddenly became nervous. Biting his nails, jittery legs, and he couldn't get comfortable in the chair as he kept his arms crossed over his chest.

"Want a cup of water—"

"Do I need a lawyer?"

"Why would you—"

Rich let out a breath as he dropped his arms. "Am I under arrest?"

"Is there a reason why you think you're under—"

"Stop with the questions!" Rich said as he stood. "I want a union rep and a lawyer, and until I get both I'm leaving."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down," Brass said as he stood and held up his hands. "We only moved in here because the interview rooms needed to be used. I also thought, if we're in here, more privacy and away from the roaming watchful eyes of everyone passing by. It's just us. You don't even know why you're here—"

"Yeah, I do. I messed up. I know I messed up. I didn't know what to do when I found out what happened. It was a mistake, I swear. I had no idea what it was, and it was too late to do anything about it anyway. I checked and I didn't see anything wrong, everything was still working fine, so I thought it'd been caught, y'know, but then I got the phone call about the lab being in lockdown and I thought 'was that me, did I do that?!'—"

"You're going a thousand miles a minute, Rich. Just take a breath, sit down, and go over it with me from the beginning."

Rich pulled out the chair and sat back down as he ran his hands through his hair. His eyes stayed on the table as he took several deep breaths.

"Just take it nice and slow. You're not in any trouble; we're just trying to figure out what happened here. If it was an honest mistake—"

"It was," Rich said as he yanked his eyes off the table to look at Brass. "I knew better, but I was going into work and the guy caught me on the sidewalk—"

Brass held up his hands again and said, "Slow, and neat. I'm following. Give me the details."

Rich pushed back on the table as he leaned back in the chair. He was a pile of nerves and restless energy that he couldn't sit still. "Outside the lab, on the sidewalk by the bus stop where I got off. This guy was giving away CD's. Up-and-comer rapper and he's slinging them left-and-right, trying to get a following. Saying he's playing at Demar's club Saturday night; he's opening. If you like what you hear, rate it, you know, go to his site and enter to win VIP access, the whole nine. I really don't care about all that, but he's persistent and anxious. He's a young guy, you know, and I'm like, okay I can help this guy out. Give him some play, so I take it—"

"The CD?"

"Yeah. Even paid him for it even though he didn't ask for anything. Ten bucks. It was all I had on me."

"Okay," Brass said as he kept his tone light and nonjudgmental. He held himself at ease, arms loose and out and ever pleasant. "Go on. What happened next?"

"I toss it in my bag, and I go to work. On break, I go to get my wallet out of the locker—I was planning on getting some street tacos down on the corner from—"

"Tacos Maela? Oh, those are good."

"Only I see the CD. Forgot I gave my cash away."

"That sucks. Tacos Maela is cash only."

"Tell me about it. I was looking forward all night for those tacos," Rich said with a smile. He was no longer nervous as he continued on with his story. "I was pissed but I always have a backup plan. Got on a computer and on-line ordered some food for delivery. And, I thought, since I was on break, waiting for my food to get there…I mean, Greg was always blasting music in the lab and no one cared."

"You thought you'd listen to the CD."

Rich said, "Yeah. I knew better. It was a burned disc, and I put it in a work computer. I knew something was wrong when the tracks wouldn't play. A popup kept saying playback error. Then I saw the malware alert. Security risk," he said as he ran his hand over his face. He was full of guilt; he was almost in tears. "I got it out as fast as I could, but—"

"It was too late."

Rich gave a nod. "Like I said, everything looked fine. No 'blue screen of death'. I thought our security worked, it blocked any virus, caught it, and we were fine." His eyes bore into Brass as he asked, "So…was it my fault? Was I the reason for the lockdown? Look, I'm sorry—"

Brass held up his hands again, calming Rich down, as he said, "That's not the reason it was locked down, but it might be the reason why we don't know who it was."

"Who…what was?" Rich asked in confusion. "The hacker? I can get with a sketch artist, look at, uh, suspect photos, maybe I can ID the guy?"

"Rich," Brass said, "you remember the AK you were testing firing a few days ago?"

"The Las Sombras AK?" he asked.

Brass nodded. "What'd you do with it?"

Rich shook his head, saying, "What do you mean? I test fired it, documented the striations, uploaded everything into the database, ran it against any—"

"After all that."

"I, uh…" Rich was confused as he said, "Like, after…? Are you wanting to know how I tagged it into evidence? Chain of custody was followed to the 'T', Cap. I signed and dated the exchange of custody, and made sure Deputy Bateman signed it in—"

"And you never got it back out?"

Rich's eyes widened in shock. "No. Are they saying I did? I never got it back out. Was it out?" He was trying to figure out what that could mean as he said, "If it was out, I wasn't the one who got it. I would've signed for it. I never got it back out." He was searching Brass's eyes for the answer. When he didn't find it, he said, "I swear. I never got it back out." He then shot up out of the seat in a panic as he asked, "Was there a shooting?! Oh, my god. Did someone use it in the lab?! Is anyone hurt?!"

Brass stood and said, "There wasn't a shooting in the lab, Rich, but it was used in a shooting…after it was checked into evidence by you. We don't know who took it, because the security footage was deleted. Probably by the hacker who gave you the CD."

Rich's face paled as he sat down hard in the chair, eyes back on the table as he covered his head.

Sara believed him as she stepped away from the observation glass and turned to see how Kevin was doing with Detective Nowlins. It'd been awfully quiet in the other room. Stepping over to the window, she turned up the volume as the door opened and Brass walked in.

"I think he's telling the truth."

Brass agreed as he said, "He's so full of guilt that if he had taken the rifle, he would have wrapped it in a nice bow and laid it at our feet." Pointing to the detective through the glass, he said, "That leaves him."

Nowlins was still highly annoyed as he shook his head, saying, "That's absurd."

"Then why were you there, Bill?" Kevin asked as he circled the table. He had yet to sit down.

"I already told—"

"Then tell me again."

Nowlins' annoyance was quickly turning into anger as he said, "What part didn't you understand the first five times you asked?! I checked out the evidence box from the car victims—"

"Why?"

"I wanted to go back over it. I thought I might be missing something, especially once I heard that Stokes found evidence in the wallet. I wanted to be thorough."

"So, you went through their belongings."

"Yes," Nowlins said as he eyed Kevin as he kept walking around the table. "I had day shift go through the wallet of Daniel Vetrini. Fingerprints, check for DNA—"

"Did they find anything?"

Nowlins let out a breath, saying, "You tell me? Did they? I haven't heard anything back yet—"

"Maybe that's because you didn't give them jack—"

"Check with Lee in DNA and Jaque in prints—"

"I will," Kevin said as he finally stopped doing laps as he leaned on the table and got right into Nowlins face as he said, "Why you?"

"Why me what?"

Kevin held up his hand as he counted off, "Samantha Ivers, Evelyn Olsen, Ashley Henley, Brandi Powers, and Daniel Vetrini and Ashley Lang."

Nowlins was eyeing him as he said, "I'm not following."

"You're the detective on all their cases. You were the first to arrive for all of them. You found Brandi Powers. You lead Grissom to where Samantha Ivers was found—"

"What is this?" Nowlins asked as he glared up at the FBI Agent. "What the hell is this?" He stood as he said, "You're trying to pin this on me? After I saved your life! You think I'm a killer now!"

"I'm not trying to pin nothing on you, Bill," Kevin said as he held his own against the man who looked two seconds away from taking his head off. "But I want to know why you had such a strong suspicion in the first place that they were connected? I want to know why you were waiting for me outside my office with their photos? Why you called my dad—"

"I didn't want any more girls to die!"

"You wanted more than that!" Kevin yelled right back as he got between the detective and the table. "They all have the same physical features, all had a criminal record including narcotics…What'd you want to bet that if I dig a bit deeper, I'd find your name on reports for all of them, Bill." He was right up in his face now. "You were Narcotics. You have all kinds of contacts, meet all kinds of girls on the street…Now those girls are dead, and you're everywhere all up in this, at every scene—"

"Go to hell," Nowlins said as he started for the door.

"You're not going anywhere—"

"You can't hold me—"

"It didn't work."

Nowlins stopped with his hand on the door as he asked, "What are you talking about?"

Kevin took a deep breath in and let it out before saying, "The hack. It didn't work. Why'd you think we moved you from an interview room to the interrogation room? Video footage, Bill. It didn't work. Now," he grabbed the back of the chair and pulled it out, saying, "Sit. Back. Down. PD can't help you now. This is Federal. I'm in charge."

Sara saw it; the twitch of his jaw, the tensing of his fist, before Nowlins was across the room and a right hook nailed Kevin across the face, sending him into the chair. Brass was out the door and rushing into the interrogation room the moment Kevin came up with his own fist. After that, it was chaos as bodies slammed into the glass, the table, and then to the floor.

She rushed out of the room as Nowlins was escorted from the interrogation room in handcuffs. Kevin walked out with blood on his lip. She dug a Kleenex out of her purse and handed it to him, asking, "How'd you know it was him?"

Kevin dabbed the blood off his lip as he told her, and Brass, "The victims. I kept thinking about how…They were so rare, and it was so odd that all of them had been involved with Nathan. If he's being helped, then someone could've been supplying him the girls used to help cook and deal the meth. They all have records…and Bill, he, uh, was always there. The last piece was the rifle."

Brass gave a nod, saying, "Nowlins had been undercover with the Las Sombras gang."

Kevin nodded, "He must've owed them to have risked so much. The fact that he signed into evidence using his own name—"

"They have to check," Brass said. "Evidence clerk always has to check the name to the face to the ID, even if it's his own brother. It's policy. Nowlins had to sign-in with his name."

Sara shook her head, saying, "You think he willingly went along, or if he was threatened?"

"Don't know yet," Kevin said. "Once he calms down, talks to a lawyer, he might open up and share a bit more, but we have him for evidence tampering and being an accomplice."

"Hopefully he knows who's doing these killings," Brass said and that was when Sara realized that he didn't know.

Kevin saw her look and cut her off, saying, "I want Sara to talk to him once he's ready."

That startled her as she said, "Me?"

"You look like them. You're also Nathan's sister. I think he might open up to you. He'll feel guilty seeing you, knowing what happened, all those deaths, was his fault. I'll be with you. You won't be in it alone."

Brass nodded as he said, "Yeah, okay. I'll let you guys know once he's ready to talk."

Kevin touched her arm and pulled her away. Once they were alone, he told her, "We're not ready to divulge everything yet."

"Once you tell Brass, he has to tell the Sheriff—"

"The Sheriff tells the press and next thing we know our suspect is in the wind. We're playing this one close to the vest until we're certain of what we're going to do."

"When you say 'we', you mean you and Gil?"

Kevin let go of her arm as he gave a nod. "Only, uh…He's not exactly Gil at the moment."

She searched his eyes and saw a fear inside of him that startled her. Gil was right, Kevin held a lot of distrust for his dad. Gil had told her that's because Kevin's seen him in a way that she never has. He's seen him as a drunk, maybe even a violent one.

She's seen violent drunks as well. Her own father's anger as he beat her mother. She knew that look in a man's eyes right before he turned into a monster. And ever since knowing Gil, she's never seen that look. She doubted that he ever knew it. To know it was to have been it, and she couldn't imagine Gil ever becoming friends with that.

"Kevin," she said, getting his attention, before asking, "He never…"

He immediately knew what she was asking as he shook his head and answered, "He never. It wasn't that. It was…His anger was, um…He yelled at times, but…what scared us the most was the silence. The look that scared us the most was that, at times, it was like he didn't know who we even were, or who he was. And when he did…he hated."

"You?"

"Himself. We were scared that he would just…disappear one day, into his head, and never come back. That it would swallow him up."

"You still think that?"

Kevin gave it some thought before saying, "Not so much anymore. He has something now he never had back then."

"What's that?"

"A strong sense of self, and who he wants to be" His eyes were on her as he spoke those words.

Gil had told her who he wanted to be. He wanted to be the man that she'd fallen in love with. He wanted to be Gil Grissom more than he wanted to be Will Graham. She knew that what grounded him, what tied him to this world, was her. She couldn't let him lose sight of that man he wanted to be once this was all over. The only way she knew how to do that was to be the woman he'd also fallen in love with. She had to find her again because the woman that Gil had fallen in love with wanted him more than anything. She wanted to be his everything just as much as he wanted to be hers. And if he let the parts of himself named Will take over in order to stop their killer, then he was going to need her more than ever.

In his mind, in the dark void, he saw her the way he'd seen her all those years ago. Dark hair, a perm, and brown eyes wearing her husband's shirt. She stood still, disarmed, as her easy breathing was felt under his fingertips. For a moment, she was alive. Heart pulsed against her neck and under his skin. He could smell her, coffee on her breath, as his face reflected in her eyes.

He dropped his hand, felt the knife in his right palm, right before the blood. It seeped from the slash in her throat, then poured from the two on her right side. One near the shoulder and other down through the nerve. She never made a sound or moved to stop him. He hadn't been a threat.

Ann Sherman's body dropped to the black floor as the blood spread out the right side of her body as if it had spilled out of her. A broken life on the floor, he stared down at her and felt…

"It's not complete."

Will lifted his eyes up to stare at what had spoken those words. Despite the black mask that covered the top of his head and eyes, only leaving the bottom half of his face open, he could see the eyes. They were a dull red. On the upper portion of his mouth, he saw the cleft lip. The mouth smiled and he saw the teeth. The same teeth that left the bite marks in Mrs. Leeds and Mrs. Jacobi's flesh. Out of his back were wings much like the winds of his own dragon. On his chest was a tattoo of the William Blake painting, 'The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Sun'. The painted wings were spread up and out over his shoulders with the tail disappearing down into the front of his pants. His hands were as black as the blood that coated them.

Looking up, he saw the full moon and its light was the only thing illuminating the dark void. "Have you ever seen blood in the moonlight?" he heard Lecter's voice ask as he spoke the words. "It appears quite black."

This was what he'd seen hiding inside of Francis Dolarhyde. This was the Red Dragon. And he was right. It wasn't complete. Ann Sherman's death was the first. The first piece to the puzzle, first brush stroke to a painting, the first cog in the wheel. It all started with her. Unfinished business to Francis Dolarhyde but the first step for a new killer.

"Do you know what the steps are to a magic trick? First, you read the trick, learn how it's done, and then you gather your props. Collect all the items, or people, you'll need. Third thing to do is practice. Practice. And more practice. Rehearse not just the trick, but what you say, and how you say it. Then, you perform it. Put it into action. But it doesn't end there. The last thing you do is analyze. Study it. See where you've gone wrong, or a flaw or weakness, so you can improve until you get it right. It's that last part where most people fail in life. Most people might learn a trick only to do it once or twice but then walk away. They hardly if ever take the time to analyze their performance. They never see their flaws, their imperfections, in order to actually become perfect. They want to lie to themselves and think of themselves as already being perfect. People hide their flaws. You couldn't. It was on your face. You couldn't be like them. Put on a fake perfect facade and wear it. That's why you killed the Leeds, and the Jacobis, and why you wanted to kill the Sherman's."

Walking around the body of Mrs. Sherman, he approached the Red Dragon as he took him all in. He hadn't noticed it before, but now he did. The toned muscles which indicated that he'd worked out, the new teeth that had been made from a mold, and the change in the voice also hadn't gone unnoticed.

"They appeared as the perfect families to the outside world, ignoring all their flaws…and you had to change them. Change them and be desired by the women. You had to be desirable. Wanted, by not just the wife, but the family. A cleft lip impacts speech development. You had to undergo speech therapy, but you were still left with a lisp. Were you teased? Mocked?"

"Who do you think you are talking to? I am the Great Red Dragon! I don't demand your awe, I'm entitled to it, you dirty boy. Piece of shit. You are nothing compared to me."

Will smirked at the monster as he said, "Verbally and physically abused. You hated yourself."

A hand lashed out, grabbing his throat as he was lifted in the air. The hand on his neck burned into his flesh. Bringing him close to his face, he said, "That weak, disgusting little boy could never do as I do. For I am stronger than he'll ever be," he spoke into her face before tossing him backwards across the dark floor.

He rubbed his throat, feeling the heat still on his skin. As the Red Dragon threatened him with his physical presence, he couldn't help but smirk at his mental weakness. That had been Dolarhyde's downfall in the end. Mentally, he'd been so weak despite the pounds of muscles he'd put on his body.

"I know your secret. The trigger that ignited the first thought, the first urge, to change."

The Red Dragon hovered over him; hands clenched in a deceiving lie of toughness.

"'Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast, and one is striving to forsake its brother.'" He spoke those words not only to the Red Dragon, but himself. He had two souls inside his own chest. "You were abandoned by your mother, your parents, after birth. I bet you looked hideous."

The Red Dragon grabbed him up again into his black hands and slammed him back down onto the floor. "You dare mock me. You're just as much a monster as I am. Look in the mirror."

He was. This was his mirror. This was why he had his own dragon. "You were given to an orphanage only to be adopted by your maternal grandmother. She didn't actually want you, did she? She abused you. She made you into the monster that you saw in the mirror. Was she the one who told you that you had a brother? A twin? When you met, you saw what you could be. You saw his perfection. You realized then why you were abandoned in the hospital. One baby boy was perfect. The other…a genetic flaw. You wanted to shed the skin of who you were? You wanted to be him."

Francis had hated everything about himself so much that he wanted to change into something else entirely. He wanted to rid himself of Francis Dolarhyde. Just as Zephyr wanted to transform by assuming others. They had the same dream. They shared the same fantasy. They both wanted to be something else. Another life by becoming another...thing. Transmutation. That was a type of metamorphose change induced by magic or a supernatural power.

"The Red Dragon is freedom to you, isn't he? Even the sound of your voice, your own reflection." His eyes raked over the being that held him to the floor. "The building of a new body and the 'othering' of yourself, the splitting of personality…It was deliberate. You craved change."

His eyes welled as his own truth hit him square in the chest. "Goodbye, Will." He'd spoken those words into a mirror of his own reflection. He also wanted to change. He also had deliberately split his personality into two. Will and Gil. The changing of his tone of voice, his way of being, of even thinking. It was all deliberate.

"See…" Hobbs' voice echoed in his head. Lecter told him during the Dolarhyde case how to catch him. He told him how he could find the 'Tooth Fairy' killer. Smell yourself.

The tears fell down his face as he said, "See…us. I am you. We're the same." He'd remembered feeling for the boy that Francis Dolarhyde had been. His heart bled for him. Lecter had warned him of killing Dolarhyde. He'd told him what would happen. He would unleash the monster inside himself. He would unleash his dragon. "I had forsaken you, myself, by killing you. That was my mistake. And now, your brother…He wants to strip me of everything and lay me bare at his feet. At his mercy. Once he has me, he'll assume me. I'm his escape plan."

The Red Dragon grinned as he let him go. He stepped back, arms spread out wide along with his wings, as he said, "You owe me…"

"Awe."

TBC…