"Richard, this isn't funny." Her expression is one of trepidation, her fear overtaking her attempt to be stern.

He cocks his head at her. "Really, Ms. Reagan? I find this all hilarious." What comes out of his mouth isn't his voice, he realizes, it's three different tones all thrumming together in an ominous melody.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Alex demands. Her words shake as they fall from her lips, lips that he has warmed with his kiss, lips that soon will grow cold when she ceases to breathe.

He smiles at her, an insane grin so large it feels like his face will split in half. His grip tightens on something in his hand, the fingers curling around it so hard it starts to give way under the force of his hold.

Her eyes start darting around the studio, and he can see the gears in her mind churning desperately as she tries to find a way to escape. It's amusing, really, and he can't help but give a dark laugh at her pitiful attempts to cling at life.

Not that it matters. He can hear her blood rushing through her veins, her quickened heartbeat pounding in his ears. Alex has always been an open book, but with his senses heightened like this, he knows her better than she knows herself.

All it takes is a single step forward, and she snaps, trying to make a run for it. He switches from stalker to hunter in a split second, and it doesn't take much to catch her, really. She's weak from lack of sleep and proper nutrition, and it shows as she struggles to escape his grip, her back pressed against his chest as his arm locks around her waist, lifting her off her feet.

Alex barely has time to scream, shattering the air with her cry before the knife he's holding in his other hand sinks up to the hilt in her sternum and a choked sound leaves her. Her entire body tenses before she starts going into shock. He lets her go, and she falls to the ground.

Her pretty eyes are wide with fear and denial, her lips parted and bloody as she tries to breathe. The sound she makes when he twists the knife is barely human, as when he yanks his knife out of her small frame. Her blood is staining his hands with a gorgeous crimson, and he's a little disappointed with the anticlimactic way she's about to die, but that's nothing a few more stabs can't fix.

Then that ridiculous Nic Silver walks in. As his eyes take in the carnage, they widen, and he's about to yell for help-

Richard Strand wakes alone with a strangled shout, drenched in cold sweat, and tangled in his sheets. He sits up right, shaking furiously. His eyes shut as quickly as they opened; he can't face the shadows right now.

A few minutes later, he gets up and throughout the entire night, he paces just about every square inch of his father's house, not leaving a single tile, wooden board or patch of carpet untouched.

In the morning, he will get dressed, make coffee, and go about his day. With reluctance, he will go to PNWS, to forage through the mystery of the Black Tapes.

The shadows smudged under his eyes will give the events of his night away, and he will flinch every time Alex Reagan lays a soft hand on his shoulder, asking him if he's alright. He won't be able to look her in the eye for a week, and she will worry that she has done something to offend him.

And, being Alex Reagan, she will confront him about it.

But that is a story for another day.