CHAPTER EIGHT: FIREWHISKEY
PART TWO

Alana Bloom's P.O.V

There was a distinctive noise paper made when it was whipped just right. A specific clap that reminded doctor Alana Bloom of the flail of butterfly wings mid-flight in spring. Crisp and clear. However, there was no chalky, flamboyant flutters to be found in the way Jack Crawford, partially behind his desk, prowling like a caged lion, whacked down the unfolded newspaper onto the table between them, the front page glaring back at Alana's furrowed gaze in black and white.

She didn't need to peek up from the paper to see Jack brace himself against the edge of the desk, feet shoulder width apart, fingers splayed, bearing down and over, to know he was furious. Jack made all that abundantly clear by the explosive tone his voice took.

"There's been a leak at the Bureau. It's a goddamned media shit-storm out there. The newspaper's are having a field day."

Jack swivelled the screen of his computer, the Tattler already black and crimson on his browser. Gingerly, Alana reached out, took up the paper, the Minnesota Herald, and eyed the headless visage of Marissa Schurr's corpse resting motionless on a morgue slab in greyscale. Next to it was a shaky shot, looking as if it had been taken through a window with the way the light streaked across its face in a broad race, was Marissa in all her theatrical pose, standing just as they had discovered her. Antlers, anacondas, and all. Headlining was three disconcerting words.

Friend or Foe?

Alana swallowed down the sick and pressed on.

Sources at the local Bureau of Behavioral Science say there could be another serial killer active in the Minnesota, Maryland area just weeks after the disastrous attempted arrest of the Minnesota Shrike, Garret Jacob Hobbs, that left two dead, eight victims, and his daughter, Abigail Hobbs, in intensive care. According to exclusive informants, this killer is, perhaps, a league away from not only their predecessor, the Shrike, but all those who have come before them.

From all reports, this killer only pursues those of its own breed. Other murderers. The King Cobra, so nicknamed by our informants for the manner of the creature's majority diet being that of other snakes as well as its own species, is said to be sociopathic, exceedingly smart, but, our informants stresses, will not attack those they deem innocent.

Marissa Schurr, twenty-one, is the first currently known victim to have been struck by the King Cobra, though sources are sure there are more on the grounds of the meticulous and severe mutilation taken upon Marissa's body, and the complete lack of evidence left behind that suggest previous practice.

On the outside, Schurr was a lively, smart, attractive girl with a bright future ahead of her. Yet, upon the discovery of her body in a, as of yet, undisclosed location, her darker past has been brought to life through the killer leaving clues behind. Upon investigation, it was discovered Marissa Schurr had been the cause of two, possibly three, previously unsolved drunk hit-and-runs, leading to the tragic death of Jude Harlowe, a one-year old infant whose mother, Linda Harlowe, barely survived the crash, and Maria Mendez, a war veteran who had served fifteen-years in the United States army.

On the matter, Oscar Mendez, Maria Mendez's husband, and the parents of Marissa Schurr have declined the offer to give a statement to our press, but Linda Harlowe, still grieving the loss of her only son, is quoted as saying on the matter;

I don't know who they are, where they're from, what they do… But if they made the person who took my son from me… My baby boy… Thank you. Wherever you are… Thank you. You've given me more than the police ever did. Justice.

And public sentimentality seems to be just as divisive as Linda Harlowe. Blogs and web-pages have sprung up already just twenty-four hours after the news broke, with amateur detectives trying to piece together a profile, some praising the King Cobra's work for doing what the FBI and Police continuously fail at, and some condemning this extremist vigilante that is leading only to more bloodshed.

One page has gone as far as setting up a betting ring on the odds of who, if there is to be another, the King Cobra will target next; with world renowned serial killer the Chesapeake Ripper in the lead, who is still at large and has their own cult following, quickly followed by Abel Gideon, the doctor who slayed his family in their home, despite him still being housed in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and a great portion of perceived corrupt government officials bringing up the rear.

The FBI have given no official statement to the public or police as of yet, and seem to desire to remain quiet on the matter. However, our sources have indicated there may just be inner conflict bubbling under the surface of the Behavioral Science department. Many of those working on the case believe one Nicholas Boyle, brother to Cassie Boyle, victim of the earlier Copycat killer, may be the culprit. However, lead criminal profiler and, highly contentious individual, field agent Will Graham has been noted as saying Nicholas does not fit the profile of the King Cobra, and the real killer is, in fact, still stalking the streets.

Perpetrator or not, I suppose time will only tell, as one thing unites the Behavioral Science Bureau. If the King Cobra is alive, they will strike again.

Of course, the Minnesota Herald does not condone any of what has previously been printed above, but it is interesting to view the contentious split in opinion on the matter, the obvious gulf ripping apart our Behavioral Science Bureau, and leads one to wonder where exactly morality falls in this large scope. One thing is for sure, dear readers, there is a new dawn this morning, and I, for one, believe the King Cobra won't come until it's called.

Guest crime correspondent, Todd Miler.

The opinions given in this piece do not reflect on the Minnesota Herald or its board of governors. They are the work of independent writers and journalists who-

Alana tossed the paper back down, disgusted by the disclaimer tackily shoved at the very end like one would leave a memo on a dish for eating the last slice of cake. That's all it was, a sorry, poor excuse for a clause to stop from being sued. People were dead, a killer was on the loose, be it this King Cobra, as they were now being called, or the Copycat, and people were making bets? Applauding?

No matter how many years Alana worked in psychiatry, the mob would always, she thought, mystify and disappoint her.

Her opinion and mood only soured more as she clocked the screen of Jack's computer fully. Hemlock's face, bright and bruised, gazed back. Next to Will Graham, in front of a cross of police tape, Hemlock appeared small, too slight, too young, and their joined hands, near the focal point of the frank shot, twisted Alana's innards to something horrendous. A heap of writhing, wiggling worms.

It was a candid shot, taken from the bushes of the surrounding woods of the Hobbs cabin. Alana could see the blurry thick leaves blotting out a corner in mottled green. More shots followed. Hemlock in a car park. Hemlock walking outside of Hannibal's office with the very same doctor at her side, smiling up to the larger man. Hemlock asleep in Abigail Hobbs's hospital room, Will nodded off beside her. The three in the car. Hemlock on her crutches, in Alana's very own garden.

The text was worse. So much worse.

Newest rising star or damaged teen?

A seventeen-year old girl, identified by this reporter's inside sources as one Hemlock Potter, has been spotted working cases for the local Baltimore FBI division. That's right, you read that correctly, a child has been drafted in to hunt the criminals the FBI behavioral science agency keeps failing to capture. Not only that, but this lucky reporter has managed to interview close friends of this previously unknown girl, and has come to a startling conclusion.

The FBI, it seems, as it has done with the notorious and unstable Will Graham, snatched up another unhinged, susceptible person to do their dirty work. Hemlock Potter is originally from Surrey, England, and a survivor of a home invasion that saw her two parents, former MI5 agents, dead. In the wake of such devastation, she became the unfortunate focus of a serial killer, and in a sick turn of events, murdered him at her boarding school when she was only sixteen years old. Not that long ago, in this reporter's humble opinion.

She is also accredited with bank robbery, mass destruction of public property, impersonating officials, fraud and identity theft, pyromaniac tendencies, the attempted murder of one of her fellow classmates in her seventh year of school, and-

On and on it went. Accusation after accusation. Truth appallingly perverted and distorted to fit a never-ending narrative of obliteration and absurdity. Alana thought the paper in her hands fell to her lap through her abruptly lifeless, cold hands. Yet, she wasn't sure. Not completely. She wasn't sure of much but the pounding of her heart in her ears, and the suddenly dazed feeling washing over her skin, as if someone had dunked her head-first into a bath of ice. She was acutely aware of everything, alert the way only shock or adrenaline can make you, and yet completely baffled.

"How did Freddie publish this… This trash? She's in custody over the murder of Boyle and-"

Jack rolled his neck, or shook his head, it was hard to tell with her eyes still pinned on that picture of Hemlock, walking across a crime scene, hand in hand with Will Graham. Why couldn't she look away? She wanted to, by god almighty, she wanted to, but she couldn't.

"She had it ready and waiting on a back-burner drive we didn't find in time, on a timer, before the whole Minnesota trip. The clock hit zero last night and it automatically published. Other papers have jumped on-board. It isn't pretty Alana."

Alana Bloom was meant to take her niece in. Alana was meant to give her a safe, warm home. Alana was meant to be sitting in that secure, cozy home with Hemlock, talking over tea, perhaps with biscuits, maybe even chatting about boys or the pricey skirt they saw in a shop window. She was meant to be giving Hemlock a life any normal seventeen-year-old should have. And maybe, just maybe, that was the sort of life Alana wanted, wanted so much it hurt, too.

Instead, Hemlock was working cases. She had been stabbed. Thrown. Beaten. Bruised. And what had Alana done? She had been knocked out. Unconscious. Slumbering upstairs while her niece fought for her life. She sat in this office, day after day, drinking coffee and giving idle advice, all the while letting Hemlock wade back into the muck of the world. Alone. Now… Now the media was circling, and all Alana could think was how she felt so very, very cold.

"What do I do?"

Alana didn't think she had sounded as lost as she did right then before. Not even when she heard news of her beloved sister Lily's death, nearly seventeen years after it had happened. Jack sighed, long and full of suffering, as he ultimately took his seat. He looked old then. Old and experienced and too full of things no one should be full of.

"Nothing that can be done, doctor Bloom. I just wanted to give you the heads up, hence why I've called you in alone. You might have a few fanatical reporters at your door, demanding an interview or quote from Hemlock, so keep her back. We don't need her accidentally adding fuel to the fire."

There was a peculiar way that confusion turns to anger. It starts in the stomach, a bubble and a pinch, until it spread out like a dust cloud, choking everyone and everything in its wake. It became hot, blistering, coarse like sandpaper. As Alana pictured the life she and Hemlock should have, witnessed it in recline against the reality that brutally assaulted that vague, summer dream, Alana didn't become a dust cloud. She became a desert storm.

"So, I keep her locked up then? Only let her out when you need a sniffer dog? She's a person Jack! My niece! I refuse to pick her up and put her down only when you need a tire wrench to bash someone's head in and-"

Crawford crashed his fist onto the table, knuckles down.

"I know that Alana! What the hell do you think I'm trying to do? We have a leak! When news breaks that Freddie Lounds, the reporter of this very same piece, is in custody with the charge of killing Nicholas Boyle, the same man who is under investigation for the murder of Marissa Schurr, and Hemlock was there along with Abigail Hobbs of all people, the media will become rabid!"

Jack raised his fist, and pointed harshly to the computer screen.

"You think this is bad? You haven't seen anything yet! They're pack animals, Alana. Vicious. They'll try to hobble Hemlock in favour of getting Freddie in a better light before her trial. Abigail's protected in the hospital, Freddie's guarded in police custody, but Hemlock is spinning in the fucking wind!"

Jack rolled his jaw, his eyes still gleaming with rage and frenzy, and though he spoke through clenched teeth, his voice dipped softer.

"They very well might try to claim it was Hemlock who knifed Boyle, even if we have Freddie's testimony, just to sway public opinion. They might even try to glorify her, turn her into some depressing hero, in hopes she would, in payment, speak on Freddie's behalf at her trial. They'll come with all the dirty tricks they can. You can bet on that. That's how the media works. They'll gun for Hemlock, Alana, and you need to keep her away from the hyenas."

The sigh that breached Alana's lips was a signal, not of resolve or anger fleeing, but melancholy replacing relief. It was funny, Alana thought, that people could feel so many conflicting emotions at a single time.

"I just want her happy, Jack. I just want her safe and happy. I'm her aunt. I'm meant to protect her. I'm meant to give her somewhere safe to be and I-… I just keep failing, don't I? God, Jack, what do I do?"

Steps boomed as Jack made his way to her, even through the plush carpet. The hand he laid upon her shoulder patted once, twice, and squeezed.

"You're doing all you can, Alana. Everybody can see that. Don't worry, this will blow over soon. Just keep Hemlock away from the media until it does. It'll all be fine in the end. You'll see."

They both knew it wouldn't be. But, Alana supposed, it felt as nice for Jack to say it and half believe it, as it did for Alana to hear it and partially disbelieve it. It gave them something to focus on, think of, and not… Wait. Sit on their hands and wait for shit to hit the fan.

Idly, Alana picked up the paper in her lap, and scanned the article again. They said you shouldn't fight fire with fire, unless you wanted the whole world to go up in smoke. Yet, the press wasn't fire, was it? As Jack rightfully said, it was a ravenous pack of hyenas, mangy fur and black gummed yipping in the night, and sometimes, the best way to deter a pack of wild dogs from going in for the kill was to turn the pack in on itself. Her fist stiffened on the paper, the thin edge sliced her thumb, stinging.

She had a reporter to go and find.

Will Graham's P.O.V

The delivery boy who poked his head into the break room of Baltimore's behavioral science bureau couldn't be older than twenty. Seventeen, if Will had to guess. He was still in that awkward stage of filling out, fattening the lanky bits, clearing the acne, showering in axe body spray, and, as he spoke, stopping his voice from breaking in nerves.

"I have a delivery for a…"

He shuffled into the room, juggling three boxes and a clipboard he had to hustle on his hip to peep at.

"Hemlock Bloom?"

Jack Crawford nodded and went back to quietly speaking to Alana in the corner of the room next to the coffee maker, now that he knew the delivery was not for him. Alana, who had been cradling her own Styrofoam cup, had not glanced up from watching the steam rise, even as the delivery boys voice broke into an ear-splitting squeak at the m in Hemlock's name. Hannibal sat between Alana and Jack, and he and Hemlock in the middle of the small refectory, on the slightly wonky couch, cup of tea perched on his knee, observing casually and silently, as psychiatrists were often to do.

Will, of course, had been huddled with Hemlock by the door, near a tray of donuts that Hemlock had been meticulously picking her way through, case file in hand, going over the newest batch of murders plaguing their streets. Three families killed around their dining table. One child missing. Single shot to the head for each member. Right between the eyes. Executioner style. More aptly, Will should say, the two had been arguing over it, particularly that last point of contention. Will believed it to be executionary originally, Hemlock was more persuaded it was devotional. The kind of face-on killing you did to an old, dying pet dog or horse that needed to be put out of its misery so you could free up space to go buy a new one. Will wasn't about to tell her that he already agreed with her, and had all along.

The only reason he kept fighting was because he enjoyed the way her cheeks flushed and her eyes ignited, and the smear of powdered sugar sullying the corner of her lip wobbled with her animated expression.

Then the delivery boy came, and Hemlock was arrested, staring, argument dying a fast death in her half open mouth, someplace among tongue and teeth, and that teasing cheerful flavour of delight turned bitter for Will. Powdered sugar to cyanide.

The poor delivery boy lumbered again, jutting out the boxes on his hip in Hemlock's frozen direction. They weren't very large things, though by no means small, the size of boutique hat boxes. Rounded. Classy. Elegant. Patterned with feathered pressed bell embossed paper, the lids free to detach, merely held in place with golden silk ribbons and crystal charmed tags. They appeared almost cut out of one of those glossy magazine pages of a Vera Wang bridal house.

And Will, who saw things no one else could, felt things other's felt, ceaselessly violated hallucination with reality, knew, oh fuck did he know, those jolly posh boxes weren't just boxes. He knew it because Hemlock knew it too.

"Please, Miss, take them. They're actually really heavy."

Hemlock marched over, never one to pause for long in the face of ambiguity or danger because, let Will be honest, she normally was the mystery and peril bound up in a very pretty face. Seizing the clipboard from the struggling delivery boy, she popped the pen from the top with a snap, signed her name in a lazy swoosh, and took the boxes. The delivery boy scampered away with the click of the closing door.

Placing two of the boxes down on the table beside them, right by the tray of half-eaten donuts, Hemlock assessed the one in her hands a few feet away from him, flicking at the crystal charm tags dangling on the lid. There was something overtly tense in the fine lines of the crystal stag head bouncing next to the delicately cut quartz rose. Something that sputtered and crackled like a crown of flames.

"Hemlock?"

She pulled at the crystal charms, the neat bow in the ribbon collapsed, and the gilded strips of silk fluttered to the floor.

"I'm not expecting a delivery. I don't go by the name Bloom, Will. I'm a Potter. I didn't tell anyone I was going to be here today. I didn't tell anyone where I am. Not Hermione. Not Ron. Only Shacklebolt has my full address, and he's swore not to give it to anybody. He wouldn't lie to me. How the hell did the delivery boy find me?"

The lid popped off, just far away enough for Will to be unable to glimpse inside, and as he watched Hemlock gander in, crane her neck over and peep inside that terrible box, watched her freeze so very fucking still, watched the lid fall to the floor with a thud from a wilted hand, Will was struck with how fluid time was. It can pass by slowly, a drop at a time, even suspend and harden like tree sap to amber, or rush by in a blink like a great river. The clock on the wall, ticking away, said time was calculated and continual, part of a decorous world. The clock lied as Hemlock did.

With the too heavy weight of self-conviction.

"Hemlock, are you okay? Do you need to-"

Alana was finally looking up, finally noticing the shift in air, finally strolling over in curiosity, finally worried. Alana was like that, filled with finality. Too bad it always made her late to the game.

Hemlock stood there, box in hand, staring down. Static and silent. She was relaxed as she answered, before Alana could come any closer. Calm and collected and in control. Will would always remember that. He would never be able to forget. He would want to. Dream he could. Pray, some nights. Yet, he wouldn't.

Realization sometimes came gradually, in little jagged pieces, and sometimes, as Will would later do that very day, when the picture was complete and you saw the truth for the first time, you would wish you had ignored that first little corner piece of the jigsaw that started the whole mess.

"Alana, leave. Go get forensics up here… Beverly. Get Beverly. She's the best of the bunch."

Alana laughed, not chirpily, not sardonically, but in that shade amongst denial and hysteria, too shrill and too forced, and took another inquiring but too late step closer, bewildered by Hemlocks peaceful but sudden demand. Will wasn't. Apprehension did that. You could feel it coming before it ever really hit you if you had the sense for risk. I am calm. I am collected. I am in control.

"What? I-"

"Go and go now. Someone get a phone, anything with a camera. Take a picture. Get exactly where my hands are… Where my prints will be."

It hit the rest in the room then. It hit like a shot of whiskey. Rapid. Slick. Clean. With the flare of fire burning at the end. Why would Hemlock need evidence of where her hands were placed? Why would she need to see where her prints would be? Why, oh why, did she want Alana, just Alana, to leave the room? One, two, three boxes the size of hat packages. The perfect size for-

"Hemlock… What… What's in the box…No…"

Alana blinked, faltered forward, nearly desperate, nearly falling. Hemlock managed to drag herself away from the contents of the box, gaze flickering between Will, Jack and Hannibal in a flurry of scarcely stifled resentment, the first few lovely snowflakes of a blizzard falling in warning of the storm to come.

"Someone get her fucking out of here!"

Jack was, as always, the first to jump to action, sweeping around, capturing Alana's arm before she could come any closer, trying to haggle her around Hemlock without coming too close to leave through the door. Alana fought. She pushed and pulled and demanded Hemlock answer her, but the younger woman only went back to looking down into the box. Jack got the door open, he shouted for forensics to get their asses up there, he had Alana around the waist now, he dragging and she clawing and, even as the door shut once again, Will thought he heard Alana's breaking cry carry down the hallway like a lamb being led to slaughter.

Will found himself moving. He found himself next to Hemlock. He found himself looking down. The first thing he noticed was the bed of shiny pearls. Polished and gleaming and pure white. Of course, anybody else would have spotted the severed head of a middle-aged woman, pinch featured and frozen in death by a warbling shriek that would never leave her, first. Yet, Will saw the pearls, refined as they were, reflecting back a hundred different hims from the bed of the box, and anew, he heard that voice whisper in his head.

I am calm. I am collected. I am in control.

"She always made me polish her pearl necklaces. Every Wednesday and Sunday. She was never happy with my work. Always made me redo it again and again until my fingers cramped. She'd lose her temper in the end. Smack me around the face with them… Pearls leave strange bruises and cuts… Round… Perfectly round…"

Will looked up sluggishly, painstakingly calm, the many reflections of him turned, all at once, and Hemlock locked eyes with his over the box. He could feel the Copycat waiting in the silk of the ribbon, burying in the folds of paper, between the shadowed places of the pearls, in the agape mouth of Hemlock's aunt Petunia. A pig's head bestowed in style and sophistication the older Evans sister had always fought so hard for but could never quite grasp herself. The other gifts, one larger than the one in Hemlock's hand, the other smaller than both, were likely her cousin and uncle.

I am calm. I am collected. I am in control.

Will saw it all.

"Hemlock…"

And so did she.

She saw the burst of recognition, the last piece falling into place in the void of Will's dark mind, and there was a sort of overdue acceptance lingering in the lines and sweeps of her pretty, pretty face. All Will could taste was cyanide and whiskey. Rapid. Slick. Clean. There was only one reason the Copycat would send a gift to Hemlock…

She was the Veiled Rider.

Will Graham's P.O.V

"They've recovered the bodies. They were at Alana's home, in the closet underneath the stairs. Staged. They're being transported to Forensics now. We should have a morgue report and method of death by tonight. Are you sure it's the Copycat Will? Hemlock has a lot of enemies back home. A few of Tom Riddle's followers are still missing and presumed alive."

Will Graham shook his head, his eyes still lingering on the spot where he had stood only an hour ago, next to Hemlock Potter, a severed head between them, before the forensics team had gushed through the door, dashed him aside, took the box, snatched Hemlock down to evidence, and the bureau had broken out into chaos like a shaken nest of wasps.

"No. That… The heads… It's him alright. Pigs to slaughter… It's him. I can feel him."

Hannibal spoke up from his seat at Jack's desk.

"The Copycat possibly saw her picture in the news, saw her assistance in the case, and it caught his attention."

It was the easiest conclusion to draw, wasn't it? It would be easy to believe everything was so simple. However, it never was. It never was and Hemlock… When bones break, they crack. When pencils break, they snap. When tables or beds break, they shatter. When blood is spilled, it splatters. When a heart broke, there was only silence.

"This is a fucking mess."

Jack huffed. Will's eyes slipped shut. On the back of his eyelids, in iridescent splendor, he saw her smiling beside him in the car, red-lipped moonbeams and movement, all the while, that damned reflection was glowering back at him from her window, telling him to look, taunting him to see. Will saw now. He saw and he broke a little inside. Hannibal rearranged in his seat, straightening his tie.

"We can't have Alana with Hemlock. We need to separate the two. As Hemlock's other aunt has been targeted, it's not a far leap to believe Alana will be next. The Copycat has pursued Hemlock's family. Alana needs a secure location until the threat passes."

Jack sagged in his chair, running a tired hand down his face.

"Alana can come stay with me. I can have security around my house. She'll be safe."

Will snapped back to himself with a jolt.

"What about Hemlock? She's the true objective of the Copycat. He's trying to get to her… He's trying…"

White belled paper, aged crystal charms, pearls and a blue dead face. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. That was the rhyme, wasn't it? Hemlock liked rhymes. She like symmetry and irony, and parallels that never deviated. She also, apparently, enjoyed carving people up, chopping off heads, and sowing snakes into bellies. Hannibal regarded him with a keen eye.

"He's trying to what, Will?"

The doctor pushed. Will blinked swiftly, his lash line clipping as they met over blown pupil. He should tell them. It's right there, in his mouth, foul and fatty. Hemlock's the killer. Hemlock's the killer. Hemlock's the killer. Three words. Five syllables. Painless. Yet, it never came.

"It was a gift. Hemlock's aunt and uncle were abusive, but they were the only real parents she's known, outside of Tom and her file says his body was incinerated. The father figure always walks the bride down the aisle. In this case, she can take him down the aisle with her. This is his way of… It's an invitation to church. He's going to want an answer. Soon. She's not safe Jack."

Jack leant forward.

"We can send word back to England, have her transported back for the-"

Hannibal interjected efficiently and politely.

"There is no need. Alana can stay with you, Jack, and Hemlock can come stay with me. I already have clearance to work with vulnerable people. I have plenty of room, and my home is very close to the Bureau. The Copycat has made no attempt to contact or, should I say, talk to me, unlike he has done with Will, so it is safe to assume that I am out of his line of sight. My neighborhood can hold a security detail on it without much pressure either, unlike Will's remote house where any idle cars would be easily identified."

Will snatched his glasses off his face, went to clean the lenses, and one popped right out the frame and fell to the floor at his feet. He was trembling, crashing, howling.

"What about Abigail? Hemlock can come to mine and-"

Hannibal smiled at him, stood, sauntered over, and gently took his glasses from his shaking hands, bending down to pick up the now scratched lens. With delicate grace, Lecter slid the lens back into the beaten frame and tenderly placed them back on Will's nose, fingers brushing curls from ears. His hand fell to Will's shoulder, on the crux where neck met joint.

"Will, Abigail is still in the psychiatric hospital. She visits, yes, but she does not stay. I have plenty of room. Hemlock cannot go to you. If it is true, if the Copycat has tracked her through the press and her photos, she has been pictured on the front page with you. Hand in hand, if I'm not mistaken. When the Copycat discovers she has been moved from Alana's, he will look to you first. It is best he does not find her there… Given your recent change in relationship."

Jack's eyes widened at the unexpected exposé, but kept quiet in the face of bigger troubles to climb. It would come, Jack's questioning and possible anger, but not while he could aim that at a killer.

Will rubbed at his mouth, felt his stubble scratch his palm, felt her breath flap against the shell of his ear, warm, so warm. I am not a good person, Will. And perhaps he wasn't either. He should be telling them. Shouting it. Demanding an agent, even himself, go down to evidence and arrest Hemlock. He could see it now. She would fight. He'd raise his gun. There would be a bang and it would all be over and Hemlock would-

He should be- and he wasn't. Instead, he was smiling unsteadily, fingers twitching at his side, he thought there might be sweat glistening on his brow, or blood, he felt like he was bleeding out and-

"You're right. She's safest with you."

Distantly, as if he was thinking outside his own body, he thought Hannibal would be safe with Hemlock. She wouldn't attack him. Not an innocent. It wasn't her design.

Jack stood up and strode to the coat-rack in the corner of his office.

"Good. Hemlock will stay with Hannibal until we can catch this motherfucker, and Alana can stay with me until we're sure she isn't a target to get to Hemlock. Doctor Lecter, forensics should be finished gathering evidence off Hemlock should anything have transferred over to her when she had the box. Please, take her back to yours and keep a close eye. I'll send a patrol around within the hour. Let Alana know I will collect her in fifteen minutes.. Don't… Don't tell her we're separating her from Hemlock. Not just yet."

Jack swept on his coat and headed for the door as Hannibal nodded, hand still on Will's shoulder, and he pondered if the taller man could feel how fast his pulse was flying underneath his skin.

"Are you coming, Will?"

Will had a split moment where Jack glanced back from the door, just one second where their eyes locked, Hannibal right by his side, where Will had one final chance of telling Jack the truth, laying it all out there. He didn't know whether it was Hannibal's hand, if moved but an inch that would envelope his throat in strong, piano fingers, tightening a portion, or whether it was that darker shard of himself floating up to the surface like oil on top of water, or the sensation of Hemlock at his other side, hand slinking through his own, tugging, claiming, that stalled his tongue, but something did.

Maybe all three.

"I need some time to think. Alone."

Hannibal's hand fell as he too made his way to the door with a final, almost affectionate, stroke.

"You're more than welcome to drop by tonight, Will. For tea, of course. I'm sure Hemlock will be glad to see you after-… After."

Oh, Hemlock would be pleased to be sure, and the sad truth? Will would still be happy to see her too. Will couldn't stop that. Just like how he couldn't stop what was so obvious to come.

"I'll be there."

Whether he or Hemlock, now that he knew, now that she knew he knew, would be leaving walking, or in a body-bag, was another matter entirely.

Will Graham's P.O.V

Will paused near the closed door of Hannibal's front room. He couldn't reasonably remember how he got there, exactly. He thought he remembered staying in Jack's office. He thought he remembered flipping a table over. He thought he remembered the smell of pine in the air as he walked through a wood, the sound of branches snapping underneath heavy feet, something running up ahead. He thought he remembered stashing something heavy and cool in the belt of his trousers.

His hand flew there now, feeling the cold press of a loaded gun digging into his hip.

Will felt like he was gently sliding into insanity.

He thought he remembered ambling up Hannibal's drive, night now fallen, god knows what he had been doing from woods to Lecter residence. He thought he remembered the bigger man opening the door, grinning brightly, escorting him inside, telling him to head on through to the front room as he finished the final touches for dinner in the kitchen and he would be in shortly.

Will thought he remembered, but he couldn't conclusively answer. Perception, even that of memory, in the end, was a tool pointed at both ends. Will liked killing Hobbs. He could admit that now. Killing Hobbs had felt just. Righteous. Wickedly alluring. Hannibal had told him, had he not, that Will sticking to therapy would reveal that the sprig of zest Will felt would show him whether it had been for saving Abigail or killing her father? The gun hidden at his side said killing Hemlock might feel the same as killing Hobbs, and it was, in fact, the latter all along that gave him that zest.

Maybe he was stuck in a cycle. Doomed to repeat that day over and over and over. Maybe he should try and lead her to the kitchen, see if he couldn't make a real replica of that fateful day.

He wasn't in full control of himself, or oddly in complete control, when he reached for the handle, twisted the brass, pushed open the door a crack and slipped in, toeing it shot behind him.

Hemlock was resting on the far windowsill, knees drawn tight to her chest, chin resting atop, knotted in upon herself, staring out into the night, more silhouette than human in the warm lamps lighting the room softly. She turned to face him, and there it was. The delight he got when he saw her. The thrill he knew would come. The pleasure that always came from her. It burned like treachery.

She was dressed in men's boxers and a white shirt three sizes too big. Forensics had likely stripped her of her own clothes, eager and hungry for evidence, and being barred from going to Alana's until they had finished dusting for evidence, Hannibal had given his own over.

She unfurled from the windowsill, slipping to the hardwood floor barefoot, and it was like watching a spider descend from their web in the corner, with that lethargic opulence only marauders could know. Will stayed with the door to his back, handle digging into spine. The lamp flashed over her, the light hit her face, and Will could only watch and wait and watch some more. She was catastrophically beautiful right then.

"Why did the Copycat send you a message Hemlock?"

They both knew. They had to at this point. Dammit, Hemlock's fucking crutches and bandage was missing, gone, clear thigh for all to see, and Will chuckled. He wasn't surprised. He didn't think he could take anything for granted with the girl in front of him, full shadow and arachnid charm.

He could make himself look, he could make himself see, but his thinking was shutting down thought by errant thought. Hemlock's chin tilted; head cocked, and Will saw himself closer, grasping her hair by the nape of her neck, and yanking it back, bearing throat. She'd glare at him, flash her own teeth in warning, and it would look like a smile.

"Where were you Will? When we got back from Minnesota, you were AWOL for three days. Alana didn't see you. Jack didn't see you. Hannibal said he only saw you at the end, at night, half out your mind. I sure as hell didn't see you. Where were you?"

It didn't take much to pick up on the thread she had dropped for him, the spider spinning a lure for the little fly to come harmlessly pestering up its web. Nevertheless, the laughter that came boiling up his throat hurt.

"You think I'm the Copycat? Me? You think I sent you your aunt, uncle and cousins head in nuptial wrappings?"

They moved at the same time. Will pulled away from the door, jacket loose about him, layer of thick mud stuck to the soles of his boots, Hemlock's feet padding on wood, nearer, deeper, harder.

"Only so many people know about my aunt and uncle. Even less know what they put me through. Only those who read my file would be able to find them, if they wanted. The Copycat inadvertently helped Abigail get away, didn't he? Put up a distraction for us to huff… You like Abigail, and perhaps it wasn't so unintentional. I checked out with Jack, Will. You were missing the weekend Cassie Boyle's body was found. You were gone then too."

He had been in his house, alone… Alone. No neighbors. No witnesses. Nothing but his dogs and a fishing rod. He wanted to snicker. He wanted to scream. He wanted to yell. Where Will had no alibi, Hemlock had too many. Same coin, different sides.

"Yet, Alana swears she saw you in your motel room the night Marissa Schurr died… And we both know you somehow weren't. It appears neither of us can trust what others say right now."

They halted a few feet apart, only a few. If Will reached up, he could brush the corkscrew hair out of her frantic face. He could also, perhaps, reach up and snap her spindly neck. He would need to be fast. Hemlock was nippy, nifty, nimble, and she liked to nibble at her toys. One wrong move and she would get the upper hand in a blink.

"I've never lied to you Will."

Soft. Supple like downy plumes and fawn fur. There was no lie to be found there. There never had been. She had not, not once, lied. Not outrightly. That was, perhaps, the worst part. How blind he had been. How fucking blind.

"You've never really told me the truth, either, have you? Was any of it real?"

Her lashes fluttered at him, a frown pulling down tight over her eyes.

"All of it… All of it was real, Will. You know that. I-… You were in danger. I was-… I was trying to help."

Will laughed.

"Help? Help? You murdered someone, Hemlock. Cut them open and messed them up. You-… You call that helping?"

She was confused, Will could tell. Her nose did that little wiggle it did when something inexplicably peculiar and perplexing crossed her path, when the daisies she like picking bit back, the wiggle of a fox's nose when it smelled a new scent. She was frankly bewildered how Will could not see her cause, her winding intention and, more, could not agree with her. To her, no doubt, it all made perfect sense. To her, it was plain, cold maths. To her, Will trumped Schurr's life.

"The Copycat was transfixing on you. I was helping in the only way I know how."

Will vehemently shook his head, striving urgently to clear the smoke and fog that was shrouding his mind, the smog that Hemlock seemed to perpetrate and infect him with. There was an innocence to Hemlock. A horrific, hideous naivety. She truly thought she had been helping. Helping Marissa pay her debt. Helping Will survive. Helping the Copycat come to his end. It was like the child who burnt down a kitchen to kill a cockroach.

"You slaughtered a girl. You did that. Do not try and put that on me."

Her eyes narrowed, flat and cruel. The child-like innocence was gone. She gazed at Will as if he was the enemy. That sway from most loved, beseeching him to see her view, the world as she did, far away. Frustration and animosity sculpted her shape to tight, vicious lines. Hemlock had no greyscale, not in emotions, only polar extremes. The glare, Will knew, would only last as long as it took her to find the most brutally cutting thing she could to tear him down with as he had just done to her.

"Slaughtered? Like she slaughtered that wife and child? Maria? She was on her way home from five years of tour of duty that night. Did you know that? She'd survived terrorists and car bombs, nights in shelters, hiding for cover… She'd made it… Until she hadn't. Until some up-start little girl decided to get behind the wheel with whiskey on her breath. You mean that kind of slaughter? Or are we talking about your own slaughter of Garret Jacob Hobbs? Ten bullets, was it? He was dead by four, but you just kept on shooting, didn't you? Couldn't help yourself. Once you started, once you got a taste for it, you couldn't stop. Is that why you were disqualified from detective work? It says in your file that you refused to shoot when you needed to. Did you know back than what it would be like? Did you know as soon as you started pushing that trigger, you just couldn't stop? Did you-"

"You can't play judge!"

She was getting into his head, down into the very trenches of it, ripping up every dank little secret he had thrown and buried down there, hoping they would never see the light of day again. He wanted-… He needed her to stop. He couldn't think straight. He couldn't breathe right. Hemlock threw her arms out wide.

"Why can't I? Do you not play arbitrator, Will? With every killer you track, you sentence them just as much as a jury does! You might not inject them, you may not lock the cage, but don't fucking pretend like you don't have your own role to play in their fate… And don't you dare pretend you don't enjoy it. In a way, you've been firing your gun all along. You've been slaughtering too. You thirst for the hunt just like everybody else."

No. Not like everybody else… Just like Hemlock. Just like the killers he chased. In truth, just like the fucking Copycat. Nevertheless, regardless of this, or maybe because of it, because she made him see the parts of himself he didn't want to see, because she wouldn't let him pretend, not around her, because fury was so much easier a weapon to wield than pain, Will wanted to hurt her back, and unlike Hemlock, Will could lie. Callously.

"What I do is nothing like this. It's nothing like you."

She flinched. A muscle in her jaw jumping, working a mile a minute. Now that wounded her. Badly. She was back on her feet quick enough, keen eyed and greedy, and her gaze fell to his side.

"So, you're not my judge right now? You're not here to sentence me? You don't think I can't see you have a gun on you? What are you going to do? Kill me? Where will you shoot, Will? The stomach? The head? Or will you go straight for the heart?"

He swallowed. The spit caught in his throat. He was still feeling mean. Cruel. Venomous. Good-natured, gentle Will, who wanted to see Hemlock as hurt as himself. He thought, beside himself, that the pain would be easier to take if someone else felt it too.

"I'm not sure you even have one."

As soon as he said it, he wanted to take it back. Snatch the very words right out the air before they could reach her. He didn't mean it. Any of it. He didn't understand why he felt this way. Why he wanted to devastate her so desperately. Yet, he did, and it makes all this easier… It makes it easier to realise Will had been changing for a while now, becoming, long before Hemlock walked into his dreary little life. He hadn't felt like himself for a while now. They both knew exactly where to hit each other to make it hurt in the best possible way.

"For a man who pretends to kill innocents every Merlin damned day for his job, you sure do like to pretend you're different, don't you? Guess what, Will? You're not. Not really. That day in the Hobbs cabin, you weren't describing me. You were describing yourself. You felt yourself through me. You're the one with masks, Will. You're the one who doesn't let people see underneath. But I have. I see you Will. You do what you do because you revel in it. Worse… You lie that you don't. You want to find a liar, Will? Huh? Look in the fucking mirror. At least I'm honest about who and what I am. You can't say the same, can you? Go on, say it. Say it!"

He can't. He fucking can't and she knows it, he knows it, they all know it. He had been free-falling for years now, trying to frantically hold onto what little semblance of decency and humanity he had left. That's why Will was enraged with Hemlock, why he wanted to hurt her, really. It wasn't because she had lied, for she had not. Not even that she had managed to get so close and deceive him, he thought he had known all along, and neither because, as sick as it made him, he was neither repulsed or opposed to what she was or what she had done.

It excited him.

That was where the anger came, from excitement bottled up, oppressed, strangled. She was pulling the last splinters of humanity and sanity right out of his grasping hands, laughing, as Tom Riddle had once upon a time done to her, lifting the veil, forcing them to look in the mirror, really look and really see that the monster, all along, had been them.

He had been becoming this for a while now. Perhaps since he was born, and there was a nostalgic shot of relief that came with the awareness that, truthfully, you were always going to end up exactly where you were standing.

"You're the Copycat, aren't you? You're him? You played me! You're playing me right now! Just like Tom! You-… You run off to England, kill my aunt, uncle and cousin, post their bloody heads to me, to what? Get me alone? Off me? Here's your chance, Will. But you only get one. Make sure it fucking sticks because I swear, if I get back up… You won't have another."

He reached for his gun, slid it out, raised it. The hammer clicked back with a clack. Hemlock crossed the distance with a single, long stride, pressed the muzzle to her forehead, and glared down the barrel at him.

"One shot. Make it count. Or pray you can run."

His finger stroked the trigger, crept through the hole, constricted. This too, terribly, excited him. It's wrong. Immoral. But it does. His eyes finally clear. Hemlock glowering back with death at her temple. He with all the power in his hands. He doesn't think about pulling the trigger. He can't bring himself to. However, he likes the way her eyes shine when she thought he would.

Perhaps, with how interwoven the two were, it was Hemlock who was excited, Frothing at the mouth for a chance at a good fight, impatient to be tested, and it was he who was suffering the bleed out. Maybe they were feeling the exact same thing, in the exact same moment in time.

It didn't matter.

Will couldn't kill her. She couldn't kill him. There, really, wasn't a he or she in Hannibal Lecter's living room. Just a them. Us. We. One. They were sick. They were wrong. They were the cruelest parts of each other mirrored back from a hundred pearls. The best echoing back from the rustle of golden silk falling to the floor. Where Will ended and Hemlock began, there was no one single place. They were joined, entwined. Her emotions were his, ravenously, irretrievably his as much as they were hers. All his behaviors, all his actions, all his faults and ticks and plans not taken, were hers. A limbic system in harmony.

It was beautiful.

"I am not the Copycat."

He dropped his gun. It swayed at his side. Hemlock searched him. Up and over and around, right down deep into every nook and cranny that was him. She believed him. That effortlessly, she believed him.

"Then who? I don't understand- They had to be close enough to read my file. They had to know I would be in Crawford's office today. They had to know you were there to see it, to make the connection… They wanted to out me to you. They obviously wanted to get me alone-… No. Not just me… I was never the target… Not the sole target… Oh…"

They sealed senses, locked eyes, bled from one to the other and back again, and two became one as Will finished her flying musings.

"They didn't just want to get you alone. They know, don't they? They know me better… They know you better… They knew if you were alone I would follow… I'd put the pieces together… You… You'd be honest about it. Of course you would… Smart… Too shrewd… They knew I would confront you… You've been separated from Alana… Jack would have just called us in for a job…"

There was only one person who knew Hemlock and Will as well, perhaps better, than they knew themselves. There was only one person who would or could entice them into this room, know exactly how it would work out, who could play them so well. There was only one person who was always there, even when he wasn't, hovering between them, unseen like atoms.

They knew Will would not, could not, rat Hemlock out, as much as she would or could never lie about what and who she was to him. One who had been missing, for both the weekend leading up to Cassie and the week the Dursley's were killed. One who would know exactly that a courting gift to Hemlock would never really be just to Hemlock, not with how connected she and Will were.

One, tonight, who knew Will and Hemlock so well, knew they would only ever see the complete truth if they bounced off each other in full sincerity of themselves, and would figure it all out. Together.

Just one.

The door to the living room swung open, Hannibal Lecter stepped in, tie and suit jacket off, top buttons of his oxford shirt undone, sleeves rolled up, tea-towel slung over a broad shoulder.

"Dinner is served."

Will swerved, raising his gun, feet apart, braced. Hemlock lobbied close to his side, her hair stick in her hand, it too high and aimed and fixed.

Hannibal smirked.

"Ah, I see you've skipped straight to dessert. Wonderful."

Thoughts?

THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed, followed and favourited! All your support for this fic really does mean a lot, and honestly, astounds me each and every time I receive any emails in my inbox. It's the reason I keep coming back to this. So, yes, thank you all. This is where I normally beg for reviews, but I'm actually pretty hesitant of the response this time. We've taken a huge right turn away from source material, there's no going back, and honestly, it's actually kind of scary lol. So... Please be kind?