The Morgue (Autopsy)
The cold bit harder here than outside. Even with his coat on, Hale felt it seeping into his bones. He hated the morgue—hated the way it made every life look small, like people ended up just another case number on a stainless-steel table.
Dr. Vivian Kline, sharp-eyed and unflinching, peeled back the white sheet. Allison looked younger now, almost like a child sleeping. Hale swallowed hard. She was alive less than 24 hours ago. Laughing, texting her friends, maybe making plans.
"Multiple strikes from a heavy axe," Kline narrated clinically, though her voice carried a heaviness too. "No hesitation wounds. He knew what he was doing."
Ruiz shifted beside Hale, his notebook useless in his trembling hands. "Jesus… she looks… she looks like my niece."
Hale glanced at him. Ruiz's face was pale, his jaw tight. Rookie emotions. Hale envied him that. He himself was past crying over victims. But not past feeling. Not tonight.
"Here," Kline interrupted, pointing at the girl's wrist. "A brand. Circular. Burned in, not cut. Deliberate."
Hale leaned in. His stomach twisted at the blackened mark, ugly against her skin. A countdown. A warning. Or both.
"She died fast," Kline added, softer now, almost apologetic. "Less than a minute after the final strike."
Hale turned away, pressing his hand against the glass. He didn't want to hear "fast." It wasn't fast enough. She had begged. Screamed. Called her mother while knowing she wouldn't be saved.
That was the cruelty of it. She had died knowing.
Allison's Family
The Hartman home was quiet, but it wasn't peace—it was shock. Allison's mother sat on the couch, a blanket over her shoulders even though the room was warm. She clutched a framed photo of Allison in a graduation gown, her hands trembling.
"I don't understand…" she whispered, voice raw. "She was just going out with friends. She said she'd be home."
Hale sat forward, his tone soft, careful. "Mrs. Hartman, anything unusual in the past few weeks? Calls, messages, arguments?"
Her eyes brimmed with tears. "She was happy. Planning her future. She didn't fight with us, not really. She was just… full of life." She broke down, the photo clutched against her chest as though it were Allison herself.
Ruiz looked away, blinking hard, pretending to check his notes. Hale didn't move. He had learned long ago not to fill grief with useless words. There was nothing to say that could stitch a mother back together.
After a long pause, Mrs. Hartman's voice cracked: "She told me she was meeting someone last night. She wouldn't tell me who. I thought… I thought it was a boy."
Hale's chest tightened. Not random. Not chance. The Bald Man had invited her.
"I promise you," Hale said finally, and his voice had a rare tremor, "I won't stop until I find who did this. I won't let him touch another girl."
Mrs. Hartman's eyes lifted, glassy but sharp. "They say he's been killing for years. If you couldn't stop him before… what makes you think you can now?"
Her words hit harder than she knew. Hale stood quietly, nodding once before leaving. Outside, the weight of her doubt clung to him heavier than the night air.
The Crime Scene Revisited
The undeveloped street was silent, empty except for the whisper of wind pushing trash across the pavement. The glow of his flashlight revealed only shadows and stains.
But standing there, Hale swore he could hear her—her panicked voice still echoing between the unfinished walls. Help. Mom, help me.
He crouched near the corner where she had fallen. That's when he saw it—paper, half-buried in dirt. He pulled on gloves before opening it.
The words crawled across the page in jagged handwriting:
"Tick. Tock. Your turn."
Hale's chest tightened. It wasn't just murder. It was a taunt. A message aimed at him.
He closed his eyes for a second, breathing hard. Memories pressed in—the first victims years ago, his failure to stop them. Now, it wasn't just about Allison. It was about him.
The Captain's Office
"You're off this case."
Captain Reynolds' office smelled of coffee and stale air. His fists were planted hard on the desk. "You're too close, Hale. I see the way you're unraveling. This guy's got his hooks in you, and you'll drag Ruiz down with you."
Hale stayed standing, his face stone. "He's escalating. He's leaving marks. Notes. He wants me on this case."
"That's the problem!" Reynolds barked. "He wants to dance with you, and you're about to give him the music."
Hale leaned closer, lowering his voice. "If you take me off, he'll kill again. And again. Because no one else understands him. No one else has been here before."
The Captain stared at him for a long moment, then sighed, his anger collapsing into tiredness. "Seventy-two hours. Bring me something real, Marcus. Or I'm pulling you off and sending you home."
Hale nodded once, stiffly. He turned and walked out. He didn't have 72 hours. He had less.
The Bald Man (Parallel POV)
In a warehouse across town, the Bald Man sat under a flickering light, his axe laid out like a sacred relic.
He cleaned it slowly, humming low, the sound too close to a lullaby. The rag came away red, but his head gleamed clean, sharp under the bulb.
On the wall in front of him was a giant paper web. Names. Photos. Strings connecting them. Some faces were already crossed out in red ink.
At the center, one word stood out:
HALE.
The Bald Man touched the name gently, almost like affection. His grin stretched too wide.
He whispered to himself, his voice smooth and cold: "The clock has started. And I always win."
Closing Hook
Hale sat in his apartment, the note spread across the desk. His hands rested on either side of it, gripping the wood until his knuckles turned white.
The room was silent except for his breath. His glass of whiskey sat untouched. His reflection in the window looked hollow, tired.
Then his phone buzzed. Unknown number.
He hesitated, then answered.
Silence.
And then—tik. tik. tik. tik.
Slow, deliberate. Like the swinging of a pendulum.
Hale froze, the sound slicing into his skull. Then the line went dead.
He stared at the phone, pulse hammering. Somewhere out there, the Bald Man was listening. Watching. Waiting.
And Hale knew one thing with absolute certainty—time was running out.
Chapter Three – Threads in the Dark
Spencer Club
The music was still pounding when Hale arrived the next evening—bass shaking the pavement, bodies pressed together inside like nothing had happened.
It sickened him.
A girl had been butchered less than a block away, and the club pulsed on like it was invincible, neon lights painting the walls in pinks and greens. Life didn't pause for death. It never did.
Hale flashed his badge at the bouncer. The man shifted uncomfortably, avoiding eye contact. He had probably already told the uniforms everything he knew, which was nothing.
Inside, sweat and perfume mixed with alcohol. The strobe lights turned faces into masks. Hale's eyes scanned the room, not for fun, not for rhythm—he scanned like a predator, searching for what didn't fit.
The manager, a sharp woman in her forties, led him to her office. She slid a box of security tapes across the desk. "You're wasting your time. Cameras cut out around ten. Whole system glitched. Never happened before."
Ruiz, standing beside Hale, frowned. "That's convenient."
Hale didn't smile. His gut twisted. The Bald Man wasn't just strong—he was deliberate. Smart enough to know where cameras didn't reach. Smart enough to kill in the blind spots.
"Who did she come to meet?" Hale asked.
The manager shook her head. "She walked in alone. Looked nervous. Ordered water, kept checking her phone. After fifteen minutes, she left."
Alone. Nervous. Checking her phone. She had been waiting for someone who never showed. Or someone who was already watching her.
Hale pocketed the tapes anyway, even if they were blank. "If he can shut down your cameras once, he can do it again. Upgrade your system. Tonight."
The manager nodded quickly, fear flashing in her eyes. She believed him. Good
Witness
They found her in the alley behind the club—smoking, hands shaking when she realized why they were there.
"I saw her," the girl said. She couldn't have been older than twenty. Makeup smeared, eyeliner smudged, but her voice was steady. "The one who died. She was pacing outside. Looked… scared. Like she knew something bad was about to happen."
"Did anyone approach her?" Hale pressed gently.
The girl exhaled smoke slowly, eyes darting away. "There was this car. Black sedan. Tinted windows. Drove by slow, like… like it was choosing her. She backed up when it passed."
Hale felt his chest tighten. "Did you get a plate number?"
The girl shook her head quickly. "Too dark. Too fast. But… she kept saying something under her breath. Like she was talking to herself."
Ruiz leaned closer. "What was she saying?"
The witness flicked her cigarette, her eyes nervous. "She kept saying… 'not him. Not him. Please not him.'"
The words lodged in Hale's stomach like a blade. She had known. She'd recognized her hunter before he even stepped into the light.
Police Station (72 Hours)
The squad room buzzed with phones and chatter, but Hale only heard the clock.
Reynolds leaned on his desk, voice hard. "So far, you've got a dead girl, a witness who saw a car, and a club full of blackout cameras. That's not evidence, Hale. That's smoke."
Hale slammed the witness statement onto the desk. "She recognized him. She didn't even see his face, and she knew. That's fear, Captain. The kind you don't fake."
Reynolds' eyes softened for a moment, then hardened again. "Fear won't hold up in court. Fear doesn't keep him in a cell."
"Fear," Hale snapped back, "is what keeps him in control. Every minute you drag your feet, someone else is walking into his trap."
The Captain held his stare, then sighed, running a hand through thinning hair. "You've got 48 hours left. Don't waste them."
Hale didn't respond. He didn't have the luxury of time.
Hale's Apartment
It was past midnight when Hale replayed Allison's last known movements. Over and over. The phone call. The brand. The witness's voice repeating her whispered words.
Not him. Not him.
Who had she thought she was meeting? A friend? A lover? Or someone who had been close enough to trick her into stepping outside her comfort zone?
His phone buzzed again. Unknown number.
He froze, pulse quickening.
When he answered, there was no sound. Then, faintly, a breath. Long. Deliberate.
"Running out of time," the Bald Man's voice rasped—deep, slow, and cruel. Then the line went dead.
Hale's hand trembled. Not from fear—no, he had lived with fear too long—but from rage. He grabbed his gun, paced the room, fighting the urge to smash the phone into the wall.
The bastard wasn't hiding anymore. He was calling. Watching. Pushing.
And worse—he was enjoying it.
The Bald Man (Parallel POV)
A warehouse. Darkness. The Bald Man sat cross-legged on the floor, Allison's phone in his hand. He replayed her last call to her mother, her sobs breaking the silence.
He smiled.
Then he opened a new folder on the table. Photographs spilled out—candid shots of women across L.A. Some taken in daylight, others in shadows.
One photo he pulled closer. A woman's face. Different from Allison. Different from the others.
This one he didn't cross out. Not yet.
He pressed it against the wall beside Hale's name.
The grin widened.
Closing Hook
Dawn broke, painting Hale's desk in pale light. He hadn't slept. Allison's case file lay open beside old ones—victims from five years ago. He traced the names, the photos, the same patterns repeating.
His phone buzzed again. A text this time.
Unknown Number: Tick. Tock. The next one's waiting.
Attached was a photo. A woman at a bus stop. Smiling. Alive.
The timestamp was ten minutes ago.
Hale's chest tightened. She was still out there. Still breathing.
For now.
He grabbed his jacket and bolted out the door.
The clock was already running.