Chapter 6 - "The Gears Shift"

Some kills don’t belong to either hand, and Mason starts tracing the blueprint backwards.

Tick.

The first time she saw the craving, it was healing.

She traced the faint scar beneath her wrist, her finger brushing the jagged curve of the hour hand. It had faded now, but it still whispered when she touched it, 3:22 a.m.

She didn't remember the blade. Just the silence. The moment when time folded inward and left her behind.

Back then, she thought she'd died.

But she hadn't. Not really. She'd just been reset.

It wasn't until weeks later, when she found the news clipping in a stranger's trash can, that she realized she wasn't the only one. The article was about a man found dead in a park, a clock carved into his skin.

The time was different. The lines cleaner. But the rhythm was the same.

She didn't know why, but she cut the article out and folded it into her pocket. She read it every night like scripture.

By the third body, she was keeping a scrapbook.

By the fifth, she was carving again. Not into herself but into oranges, wood, soap bars. Practice.

He found her a year later. He wasn't angry. He wasn't surprised.

He said nothing when he held up the small carving she left behind in that hotel room-her signature. A clock, almost identical to his, except hers always had the second hand. Moving. Always moving.

"You're not done yet," he said quietly.

She hadn't spoken. She didn't need to. Something in him saw her, understood her in a way no one else had. Not her mother, not her therapist, not the men she tried to explain it to. Only him.

He gave her a blade. She brought her own time.

They never spoke of what she was before-before 3:22. That part of her was gone. Dead or sleeping. It didn't matter. What mattered was the tick. The rhythm. The ritual.

And the audience.

Now, they worked together. Sometimes in sync. Sometimes apart.

He chose based on memory.

She chose based on regret.

And deep down, she wondered if one day he'd carve her time again, this time deeper. Final. Because she'd copied his art. Stolen his time.

Tick.

Tock.

She smiled at the newest file open in front of her.

Detective Mason Cole.

There was no time on it yet.

But she was already listening for the beat.