Chapter 2: Blood Never Lies
Warm blood splashed across my forearm.
The sensation broke something loose in my chest—a pressure valve releasing decades of accumulated need. The Urge Meter in the corner of my vision plummeted as Donovan's body spasmed and stilled.
[URGE METER: 94% → 34%]
[CONTROL +3]
[TARGET ELIMINATED — CODE COMPLIANT]
[FIRST KILL BONUS: +500 EXP]
Relief flooded through me. Wrong, horrible relief that belonged to Dexter Morgan's physiology, not my conscience. But it felt good. Like scratching an itch that had been building for weeks.
"Clean work," Harry observed. "For a first timer. Now finish the ritual."
I stood over the body, knife dripping, trying to remember how to breathe normally.
"Ritual?"
[RITUAL PROTOCOL DETECTED IN HOST MEMORY]
[STEP 1: BLOOD SAMPLE COLLECTION]
[STEP 2: BODY PREPARATION]
[STEP 3: DISPOSAL]
"The slide," Harry prompted. "You keep a trophy. A drop of blood. So they're never really gone."
Muscle memory took over. My hands found a small case in the kill kit—glass slides, a lancet, labels. I cut a thin line across Donovan's cheek and pressed the slide to the wound. Crimson welled up, bright and alive against the glass.
[TROPHY COLLECTION: NOT RECOMMENDED]
[HARRY DISAPPROVED OF THIS PRACTICE IN LIFE]
[CODE VIOLATION: MINOR — EVIDENCE RISK]
"The system's right. Trophies are dangerous. But you'll keep them anyway, won't you? You always did."
I stared at the blood slide. Evidence. Proof. A connection to every kill this body had ever made.
The smart move was to destroy it.
I pocketed it anyway. Something in Dexter's inherited psychology demanded the ritual be completed. Maybe someday I'd be strong enough to break the pattern. Tonight wasn't that night.
[CODE ADHERENCE: 50% → 48%]
[MINOR PENALTY APPLIED]
"Focus," Harry said. "The body won't dispose of itself."
Muscle memory guided me through the rest. Plastic sheeting. Heavy-duty garbage bags. The weight and heft of lifting dismembered sections—Dexter's body knew the work even if my mind recoiled from it.
[DISPOSAL METHOD: GULF STREAM — STANDARD PROTOCOL]
[DISCOVERY PROBABILITY: 12% WITHIN 6 MONTHS]
By the time I loaded the last bag onto the boat—the Slice of Life, a name I found darkly appropriate—three hours had passed. Miami's skyline glittered across the water, oblivious to what had happened in the abandoned building on its outskirts.
The engine coughed twice before catching. I spent ten minutes in the dark, salt spray hitting my face, fiddling with fuel lines that Dexter's memory said needed replacing. My hands still shook, but not from the kill.
From everything else.
I'd been an accountant. A nobody. I'd died and woke up in the body of a serial killer with a supernatural management system in his head.
[QUERY DETECTED: TRANSMIGRATION ORIGIN]
[ANSWER: UNAVAILABLE]
[SYSTEM PURPOSE: CHANNEL THE DARKNESS. PROTECT THE HOST. MAINTAIN THE CODE.]
"That's not an answer."
[CORRECT. SOME QUESTIONS HAVE NO ANSWERS. THIS IS ONE OF THEM.]
"Stop asking why and focus on what," Harry added. "You're here. This is your life now. The only question that matters is: what will you do with it?"
The boat cut through the Gulf Stream's current. Miles from shore, I stopped the engine. The bags went overboard, weighted with chains, swallowed by black water.
[DISPOSAL COMPLETE]
[HEAT MAINTAINED: 5 — COLD]
[OPERATION RATING: B+]
[AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT: HESITATION TIME, EMOTIONAL REGULATION]
Salt air filled my lungs. The hunger had faded to a manageable whisper. For the first time since waking in this nightmare, I felt something like control.
"Good," Harry said. "Now comes the hard part. Tomorrow you go to work. Tomorrow you pretend to be Dexter Morgan. And tomorrow you do it surrounded by homicide detectives who are trained to spot killers."
The engine roared back to life. Miami's lights pulled me toward shore.
I docked the Slice of Life at the marina as dawn bled pink across the horizon. My hands—Dexter's hands—wouldn't stop trembling until I'd scrubbed them raw in the boat's tiny sink. Water ran clear, but I kept scrubbing anyway.
[CURRENT STATUS]
[LEVEL: 2 — APPRENTICE]
[EXP: 520/1500]
[STATS: CTRL 15 | PRC 18 | INS 22 | FAC 15 | SHD 14 | RES 10]
[+3 UNASSIGNED STAT POINTS AVAILABLE]
Tomorrow I would walk into Miami Metro Homicide and analyze blood spatter while hiding the fact that I'd created some of my own. Tomorrow I would smile and make small talk with detectives who would arrest me if they knew the truth.
Tomorrow I would meet people whose names I should already know—a sister named Deb, coworkers whose faces existed only as fragments in inherited memory.
But tonight, I stepped off the boat as the sun crested the water, washed the blood from my hands, and let the horror settle into something like acceptance.
I was Dexter Morgan now.
And Dexter Morgan had work in six hours.
Reviews and Power Stones keep the heat on!
Want to see what happens before the "heroes" do?
Secure your spot in the inner circle on Patreon. Skip the weekly wait and read ahead:
💵 Hustler [$7]: 15 Chapters ahead.
⚖️ Enforcer [$11]: 20 Chapters ahead.
👑 Kingpin [$16]: 25 Chapters ahead.
Periodic drops. Check on Patreon for the full release list.
👉 Join the Syndicate: patreon.com/Anti_hero_fanfic