When the verse came to me before I was assigned to the Hollow’s Row case, I thought it was a remnant from an old college class. I’m good at giving the inexplicable a logical explanation. Kallum’s words from that night imprinted on me, seared so deeply I branded them onto my body.

I see Kallum rolling up my sleeve in the hotel room, feel his heartbeat thundering under my palm as he traced his fingers over the tattooed words. On the bridge, he told me I inked my own sigil in script, that I recite my affirmation daily, my own way of keeping the past buried and forgotten.

Where do you think your subconscious picked up on that?

Despite the humidity, I shiver at the memory. He knew exactly where I got my affirmation, and why I inked it into my skin. He was just waiting for me to remember.

I drop my hand from the stitched injury. There are a number of scars desensitizing my flesh, layers of painful memories. Little by little, we are altered by life as it chips away at us. Most of the time, we fail to notice those subtle alterations. Then there are the catastrophic changes that alter us irrevocably.

The woman who I was before is a stranger to the woman I am now as I stand here, looking over a storage unit that holds the only thing I feel is of value to me enough to save.

The cases of the dead.

The evidence of how I became one of them.

With that, I haul another file box over and empty the contents of my tote, the bagged evidence of Alister’s attempted assault on me. The skin cells I scraped from beneath my nails, the torn clothes I was wearing at the time. All of it goes into the bottom of the box before I seal the lid.

The evidence will need to be destroyed, as it’s now evidence that could incriminate Kallum as a motive for Alister’s murder.

I dip under the roll door and lower it to the concrete, securing the combo lock in place. Then I head toward the black SUV where Agent Hernandez leans on the door. Shades drawn over his eyes, he looks up from his phone.

“Get what you need?” he asks.

I hold up the notebook in answer. “Did Agent Rana reply to our request to interview the recovered locals?”

The derisive frown pulling at his mouth says how asinine my question is.

“Right,” I say, walking around the vehicle. “That would be absurd, as I’m now a victim.”

Agent Rana, the new lead on the task force, would have me removed not only from the case, but from the town if it was within her power.

She doesn’t trust me.

My irrational behavior at the Alister crime scene might have helped influence that.

But seeing as I’m now a witness in regards to Devyn Childs, I’ve been remanded here. Technically, I should no longer be working the case as a consultant to the Hollow’s Row Police Department. As a victim, it’s considered unethical, but that hasn’t stopped Hernandez and me from conducting our own side investigation.

Annoyed with my limited options of wardrobe today, I gather my black skirt and step up into the passenger seat of the SUV. While Hernandez navigates the vehicle through the narrow streets toward the precinct, I clutch my notebook and stare out the tinted window.

The setting sun slashes the sky in gashes of burnt orange, outlining clouds in a seam of blazing red, the color of violence. The tall trees are black silhouettes against the neon backdrop, a stark contrast to the drawn and morose elements of the town.

There’s something wrong with this place. An emptiness, a hollowness that aches beneath the gothic architecture of its charming exterior, like a bated breath waiting to exhale.

I felt it the very first time I entered the killing fields, a brand of evil all of its own. It doesn’t dwell in the trees, or the houses. It festers in the people.

This town has a sinister hold over all of us.

After Hernandez parks, I slip the journal into my bag and climb out of the SUV. As I situate the tote strap over my shoulder, my gaze hardens on the faded brick building ahead, and a kernel of anxiety digs beneath my defenses.

Hernandez takes up my side, his large presence a comfort. “It’s just a creepy old building,” he says, reading my hesitancy.

I nod once, my action uprooting my feet as I take a step forward with conviction. “I was just thinking that.”

Memories can be as temporary as our existence.

Whatever lingering fear resides from Alister’s assault is quickly obliterated as I summon the mental image of his severed head. From now on, that’s how I’ll remember him. The skin flayed from his skull. A symbol carved into the bone.

Selfishly, Kallum’s act makes me feel not alone in mine.

As he’s protected my secret, I have to protect his.

I’m the catalyst for Kallum’s crime against Alister. Two mirrored moments in time, one woven over the seams of the other, like the harsh red outline of the lowering sun.

The night Kallum found me, I became his muse, his inspiration for the darkest acts of violence.

I’m the one who told him to sever the head.

I taught him how to stage the Harbinger crime scenes.

If we had never crossed paths, Kallum Locke would still be the bad-boy professor of academia, and not committed to a psychiatric institution.

He wouldn’t be a killer.

We all have a dark counterpart. Even a muse of light and inspiration beckons the darkness when challenged. Where these forces are capable of gifting divine, creative genius, when pushed beyond the brink, they are just as capable of becoming a curse.

Throughout my career, throughout all the darkness I’ve encountered, each and every horrific, gruesome case, I never let it touch me. I was safely sheltered in a life of light and love. Then the moment my parents were taken from me in a hit-and-run, the darkness found a crack.

Violence leaves a stain, like soot after a fire. The tarry ash transfers to every surface, impossible to remove once it’s touched you.

There’s a terrible truth Kallum couldn’t have known about that night, a truth that was impossible for me to admit even to myself, the actual reason I chased after a notorious serial killer.

No, I didn’t set out that night with the intent to kill the Harbinger.

I had hoped he’d kill me.

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3

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PRIMORDIAL PAIN

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HALEN

The atmosphere of the department is as sterile as the lingering scent of antiseptic drifting through the chilly air. As if the locals are trying to purge the rancid trace of betrayal from the system.

I follow Hernandez through the warren of cubicles, catching sight of many sullen expressions. One of their own has deceived them, and for members of law enforcement, this is a double slight. Devyn was a friend as well as a trusted member of their department.

A few curious looks are directed my way as we head into the interrogation section of the building. A local uniform guards the middle room, presumably where Tabitha is being held. As we enter into the monitoring room, Agent Rana and Detective Emmons are conversing in hushed tones with other task force agents.

A flush gathers beneath my skin at the sight of the brightly lit interrogation room through the two-way mirror. Tabitha is seated at the table—the same table where Kallum and I shared a heated encounter. The memory evokes the possessive feel of Kallum’s touch—his hands on my body, the demanding dig of his fingers in my flesh—and I’m entirely too aware of the achy need low in my belly.

The recorded footage of that intimate moment was deleted, along with my presence in the building when I broke into the evidence room and stole the carving knife. I was able to stealthily relocate the evidence from Hernandez’s SUV to the safe in my hotel room.