The rain had been falling for three straight days, the kind that blurred the city's skyline into a wash of silver and smoke. Atlanta breathed through it—neon lights flickering against puddles, traffic crawling like tired veins across the wet asphalt, thunder rolling low and constant. Somewhere beneath that restless heartbeat, a man walked alone, a dark shape moving through the rain.
He kept his hood low, his steps unhurried, as if the downpour existed only for him. The underpass he entered smelled of rust and forgotten things. Graffiti spread across its walls in desperate colors—names, curses, half-finished dreams sprayed onto concrete like ghostly fingerprints. Water dripped from a cracked pipe, keeping time with the faint hum of a passing train above.
He stopped beside the figure lying motionless on the ground. The woman couldn't have been more than twenty-five. A tangle of black hair clung to her pale cheek, her eyes half open in stunned disbelief. Her wrists were bruised. Her lips parted as though she had tried to say something—perhaps a plea, perhaps a name—but the rain had taken her voice.
The man knelt beside her and drew from his coat pocket a length of silk ribbon, crimson and perfect. He studied it for a long moment, the way an artist studies his final brushstroke. Then, delicately, he tied it around her wrist in a single loop and knot. The color shone vividly against her skin, glowing under the fractured streetlight.
He smiled. "Every story needs a beginning," he murmured, his voice steady and patient, like a teacher explaining a lesson. "And this… this is mine."
A flash of lightning revealed the glint of a small camera in his other hand. He raised it, pressed the button, and a single burst of white light sliced through the rain. The Polaroid hissed softly as the image slid out. He waved it once, admiring the developing picture—a woman, a ribbon, a promise.
Thunder cracked. He tucked the photograph into his coat, rose, and disappeared into the shadows as smoothly as he'd arrived. Within seconds, only the steady whisper of rain remained. The red ribbon fluttered gently in the wind like a heartbeat still refusing to stop.
Across town, Raina Cole woke to the shrill buzz of her phone vibrating on the nightstand. She blinked at the digital clock—6:14 a.m.—then at the name flashing across the screen: Dispatch.
Her stomach tightened. Calls that early were never good.
"Cole," she answered, her voice rough from sleep.
"Morning," came the familiar voice of Officer Shane Briggs, steady but carrying an edge she recognized. "You might want to see this yourself."
"What happened?"
Another pause. Rain crackled faintly through the speaker. "Another one."
Raina swung her legs out of bed, every nerve sharpening awake. "Another what?"
Briggs hesitated before saying the word she'd been praying never to hear again. "Ribbon."
For a second, she couldn't breathe. That word had been retired from their vocabulary months ago, sealed away in a folder labeled unsolved. They had promised themselves it was over. The Crimson Trail case—the string of killings that had haunted Atlanta for nearly a year—had gone cold, buried beneath paperwork and sleepless nights.
Now it was back.
She crossed her small apartment, eyes tracing the rain streaking down her windowpane, the blurred lights of the city below. She could almost feel the chill seeping through the glass, the same heavy silence that used to fill the morgue when a ribbon case came in. She thought of the victims—the patterns they never cracked, the photographs she still saw in her dreams.
Her reflection stared back at her: tired eyes, tangled curls, the faint scar beneath her jaw that most people never noticed. She pressed a hand to it unconsciously.
"Where?" she asked finally.
"Old Fourth Ward. Under the rail bridge near Boulevard."
Of course. The same neighborhood where her mother used to live before everything fell apart. A place she had avoided for years, but the city had a way of pulling you back to where your ghosts waited.
"I'll be there in fifteen," she said.
"Bring gloves," Briggs added quietly. "This one's… different."
The call ended.
Raina stood for a long moment in the dimness of her apartment, the sound of rain muffled by glass and distance. She'd worked forensic scenes for three years, seen things that stole sleep and appetite alike, but the Crimson Trail cases had been personal in a way none of the others were. Maybe it was the precision—the way each scene was arranged like a confession—or maybe it was the lingering sense that the killer wasn't finished with her unit, or with her.
She dressed quickly: jeans, black shirt, the worn leather jacket that had survived more crime scenes than she could count. On her table lay a stack of unsorted case notes and, on top of them, a photograph she kept face-down. She hesitated, then flipped it over. Her mother smiled up at her, arms wrapped around a much younger Raina in front of an old brick house. The picture was fading, but one detail remained sharp—a crimson ribbon tied in her mother's hair.
Raina's throat tightened. It had been years since she'd thought about that ribbon, yet somehow it had become the killer's signature. Coincidence, maybe. Or something else.
Outside, a police siren wailed in the distance, slicing through the hum of the storm. Raina slipped the photo into her pocket and stepped into the hallway. The elevator smelled faintly of damp concrete and cheap air freshener. She stared at the floor numbers blinking down, her reflection distorted in the steel doors.
When they opened, the city's wet breath greeted her. She pulled her hood up, dashed across the parking lot, and climbed into her car. The windshield blurred with rain, the wipers struggling to keep pace.
As the engine started, she caught sight of something through the misted glass—a strip of red fabric snagged on a chain-link fence across the street, fluttering weakly in the wind.
She blinked, and it was gone.
Raina gripped the steering wheel tighter. Whether it had been her imagination or a warning, she didn't know. But she felt it again—that quiet, inevitable pull toward the truth, the one she could never resist.
The Crimson Trail had begun again.