Chapter 13 - "The Weight of the Pendulum"

The gears tighten. The detectives follow a ritual, unaware of the rot within it. The Follower slips-just a hair. Michael prepares to strike. And the Timekeeper finally stirs.

The victim had been propped up like the others, wrist exposed. The carved time read 3:06-clean, shallow-like the killer had been cautious.

Too cautious.

"Same carving. Same placement. But something's off," Brandt muttered.

LeClair knelt near the body. The wound was precise, yes. But the expression-almost peaceful-felt different from the others.

"Look at the eyes," he said.

Brandt leaned closer, frowning. "They're closed. All the others-open."

LeClair nodded. "He hesitated. Or changed something. Either way, this isn't just a copy-paste."

The ME approached quietly behind them.

"No sign of forced trauma," she confirmed. "But she wasn't moved like the others. Everything here was...gentler."

LeClair straightened. "He's either refining it..."

"...or slipping," Brandt finished.

-

It wasn't wrong.

But it wasn't right either.

She didn't fight. Didn't scream. I thought that would make it cleaner. Make it pure.

But the carving felt soft. Unworthy. It didn't click like the others.

3:06. Not Panic. Not grief. A soft tick between bold hours.

Is it the time? The placement? Or was it me?

He would know. He would see the deviation.

But I can't fail-not before I find Him. Not before I am allowed to join.

The seventh will be perfect. It has to be.

He rearranged a folded letter beneath his pillow, next to the blade. The seventh name written in pencil on the back. He hadn't made a decision about her yet. That made it feel cleaner.

He saved the email. Still hadn't sent it.

Not yet.

Not until the gears locked into place.

-

The imposter hadn't left his motel in three days. A crumpled fast-food bag sat on the window ledge. The smell had began to rot.

Michael didn't blink.

He had traced the killing back to the boy. A child found near an abounded silo. The news had blamed a drifter, then nothing at all. But Michael had seen the photos.

The boy's wrist had been carved-but wrongly. And later-weeks later-the imposter began copying more.

He'd found a journal. The boy's words. The boy's rituals.

That had been the origin.

A clock started ticking that day-and now it was out of sync.

Michael exhaled slowly, watching the sky turn violet.

"Not much longer now."

-

He listened to the air move.

Time didn't speak in words. It clicked. it chimed. It remembered.

He had let the world continue while his hands remained still. But now imitators sprang up like weeds in a manicured garden.

Michael was loyal. Even loyalty rusts with neglect. He'd left the boy behind. Failed to find him in time.

A child's silence was the loudest deviation of all.

But he had learned from it. That made him salvageable.

The other-the Follower- was still forming. Still brittle.

"Some blades cut clean. Others splinter the gear."

He stood before his wall of watches. Each still ticking.

He touched one marked with a red thread: 3:06.

"Deviation is an echo."

"If it grows, the pendulum must fall."

-

The connection between the first four victims was still unclear, but the fifth had shaken their rhythm.

“She wasn’t supposed to be next,” LeClair said, flipping through background files.

Brandt nodded. “And none of the previous four were female. That’s our shift.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

Then LeClair opened a drawer he’d avoided until now-the one labeled “Cold Cases: Temporal Pattern, 2011-2013”.

He pulled a name: Maddox Crane. A maintenance worker who vanished three days after his supervisor died of a suspected overdose.

The name had shown up on two zoning permits connected to the first victim.

And handwritten on a corner of the page:

“M was here. Time was kept.”

Brandt looked over his shoulder. “Who the hell keeps time with corpses?”

LeClair whispered, “Someone we haven’t met yet.”