Chapter 12 - "Rust in the Works"

Mason and Vega connect the dots—some kills weren’t solo. The killer sees the rust, and plots removal.

Blood pulsed from the wound in erratic spurts, soaking the velvet of the chair. Eloise watched it with fascination, as though waiting for the pattern to change.

It didn't.

The man gurgled once, then went still.

He was younger than her usual types. Not someone from her past. Not even a name she recognized. But he looked like someone. A neighbor, maybe. A guidance counselor. Someone who smiled the wrong way at her once.

She couldn't remember.

Didn't want to.

The carving was messy.

The second hand she prided herself on, crooked, jagged. She blamed the blade, but deep down she knew it wasn't the knife that had slipped.

It was her.

Tick tock.

She stared at the clock on his wall. The time didn't match what she'd carved. She didn't care. She liked 3:03 better anyway. It felt wrong. Unbalanced. Like her.

She smeared a bloody hand across the glass face of the clock, distorting its reflection, then laughed-short, breathless, as if it startled even her.

She was still laughing when she left him there.

Still laughing when she stepped into the rain.

Still laughing when she looked up and thought-He's watching me.

But instead of fear, she felt something worse.

Excitement.

Tick.

Tock.

The board was covered with pins and paper, but that wasn't what caught Vega's eye. It was the timeline. When laid out, something became clear: some of these victims had to be killed by more than one person.

"The MO split isn't just style," he said. "It's sequencing. Look, Paulons's carving is clean, but the site of trauma is chaotic. That's two signatures."

Mason nodded slowly. "An Amelia...her body was moved. Postmortem."

"Exactly. Like someone posed her."

They stared at each other, the same realization passing between them.

"They were working together," Mason said quietly. "Not always, but enough."

Vega added, "And now? The second killer's carving style is changing."

Mason leaned forward. "Getting sloppier."

"Or more rushed."

"Or unhinged."

They stared at the map again. The killings had a rhythm before. A logic. But now, it was losing tempo, spiraling out.

"She's going off on her own," Vega muttered. "She's not following his pattern anymore."

Mason nodded once, lips thin.

"And he knows it."

Tick.

Tock.

The gears of a clock work in harmony.

Each tooth must mesh. Each part must submit.

He had built something beautiful-a choreography of consequence. Time as judgement. Pain as punctuation.

And now?

She was dragging rust into the machine.

The signs were everywhere. Wrong timestamps. Incomplete carvings. A victim that should've lasted hours, dispatched in minutes. A body left where it could be found too soon.

Her hands were shaking.

Her pulse was too loud.

Her intentions are too personal.

Worst of all, she was starting to enjoy it.

He sat in his quiet room, tools lined in rows, each cleaned and sharpened. He thought of her laughter-the hysterical edge in it.

That wasn't discipline.

That was decay.

And like any rusted part of a precision system, it would need to be removed.

He folded his notebook shut.

"She is no longer part of the clock."

And when the clock is compromised?

You reset it.

By force.