Noah caught Evan before the floor did.
Evan collapsed into him, sudden and weightless, like his body had forgotten how to belong to gravity. The impact drove the air from Noah's lungs.
"No—no, no—"
He went down with him, knees hitting tile, arms locking around Evan's back. One hand pressed hard between his shoulder blades, as if he could force breath into him by touch alone.
"Stay," Noah whispered, voice splintering. "You don't get to do this. Not now."
Evan didn't answer.
His lashes lay too still against his cheeks.
Only the faint, uneven rise of his chest proved he was still alive.
Noah held him like that until hands pulled him away. Until voices blurred into noise. Until the world took Evan from his arms.
Evan woke to white.
White ceiling.
White light.
White silence.
For a moment, he didn't know where he was, or who he was.
Then the dream slid back into him.
A knife in his hand. Not shaking. Steady. Someone on their knees. Crying.
His reflection in dark glass...calm. Focused. Empty.
He had felt nothing.
Not fear.
Not guilt.
Not even hunger.
Only completion.
Evan gasped and sat up, fingers clawing at his own chest like he could tear the memory out by force.
"Was it me?" he whispered to the empty room.
"Did I do it?"
No answer.
No nurse.
No Noah.
Only the low hum of machines and the distant sound of life moving forward without him.
Noah didn't go to the hospital.
He went to the board.
He buried himself in the case the way some people buried their dead.
Four murders.
Nine weeks.
Same rhythm.
Same careful timing.
Same quiet after.
Different victims.
Different neighborhoods.
Different lives.
But the same hands.
The wounds were precise.
A deep incision to the femoral artery.
Clean. Measured. Deliberate.
No rage. No chaos. Choice.
Noah pinned the photographs in a line. Stepped back.
His mouth tasted like rust.
"A single offender," he said quietly.
The room stilled.
"Methodical. Not impulsive. Not emotional."
Someone asked, "You think it's one person?"
Noah didn't turn.
"Yes."
He circled the crime scenes in red.
Connected them.
Thin lines stretched across the city map.
Not a pattern.
A boundary.
A territory.
"He's not just killing," Noah said. "He's maintaining something."
He hesitated.
"…And showing it to someone."
Silence crept into the room.
"What do we call him?" someone asked.
Noah exhaled slowly.
"The Hunter."
The name settled like dust.
And then came the thought he couldn't shake.
Why Evan?
Why only these murders?
Not the others.
Not the random ones.
Not the loud ones.
Only this killer.
No matter how Noah turned it, every answer circled back to Evan.
And that terrified him.
By the time Noah reached the hospital, the sky had darkened.
He didn't knock.
Didn't slow.
He pushed the door open...
Empty.
The bed neatly made.
Sheets smooth.
Machines silent.
No Evan.
No note.
No explanation.
No warmth where a body had been hours ago.
Noah stood frozen, staring at the hollow shape in the mattress where Evan had existed.
"Evan…?"
The room did not answer.
And somewhere beyond its walls, something precise and patient continued to move.