Chapter 12: A Deadly Dance
"One step, one crime scene, one heartbeat at a time."
They say love is a choice.
But that's not true.
Sometimes, it's a descent.
And once you start falling, you don't get to choose where you land.
The city didn't sleep that week.
Neither did I.
Three murders in four days.
Each more grotesque, more elaborate than the last.
Each one a message. A dance step in our silent ballet.
The first:
A violinist, strung up like a marionette in an abandoned theater. Red chrysanthemums tucked into his chest cavity. Bowstrings wrapped around his throat.
The second:
A socialite drowned in her own pool. Her body floating beneath a canopy of wisteria, petals turning crimson from the blood still blooming from her wrists.
The third...
I arrived before the rest of the team. Somehow, I always did now.
A librarian. Posed at her desk, spine snapped neatly backward over the chair, a bouquet of anemones spilling from her mouth like a secret trying to escape.
On the wall behind her:
"You always loved silence. I gave you a library."
I stood there for too long.
Long enough for the scene techs to whisper.
I wasn't just investigating anymore.
I was admiring.
Later that night, I met Lucian again.
In the greenhouse beneath the villa, where the scent of damp soil and sweet rot clung to everything like memory.
He was barefoot, pruning a vine of bleeding hearts. The petals looked like teardrops split open.
"You saw the librarian?" he asked.
I nodded.
"Was it too much?"
The question made my pulse flicker.
He wanted my approval.
"Her posture was too... rigid," I said finally. "You forced it. She didn't feel at peace."
Lucian paused.
Smiled.
"You always had such exquisite taste."
The greenhouse felt like a confessional.
Only instead of forgiveness, it offered surrender.
He spoke about the "art," the symmetry of decay, the importance of placement and symbolism. He asked about my older work—things I hadn't thought about in years. Not since I buried them under the weight of my badge and my new name.
He remembered everything.
Sometimes better than I did.
We sat on the cold tile floor, surrounded by petals.
At one point, I looked at him and said, "Why me, Lucian? Out of everyone—you chose me."
He leaned closer, his voice barely audible over the hum of the old heater.
"Because when you kill, it's not cruelty. It's clarity. I saw it in your eyes the night you buried the man by the lake. You weren't hiding—you were becoming."
I closed my eyes.
And let myself believe it.
The next murder felt like ours.
That's the only way I can describe it.
We didn't plan it—at least, not aloud.
But I found the victim three hours after I left the villa.
A street photographer.
Throat slit, body sprawled across his prints, which were arranged in a spiral on the ground.
A single freesia tucked into the camera's lens.
Innocence.
Lucian's way of saying it wasn't me this time.
But it was.
It was both of us.
It always had been.
The lines were gone now.
No difference between the killer and the detective.
No mask. No act.
Just a woman chasing death—and finally, catching up to herself.