— Now —

Malcolm felt a wave of calm flow over his body, chilling the fire he had felt seconds before. He advanced on the prone man like a hunting lion, slowly, deliberately. If only Dr. Whitley could see him now. The knife glinted in his hand. His father would be so proud right now.

A barely audible broken whisper from behind him cut into his musing. "Malcolm. Don't do this. Not for me… please."

Malcom just gripped the knife harder.

— 5 days earlier —

Brown eyes snapped open, shooting around rapidly to trying to take everything in. The room was dimly lit, everything blurry. With a groan Gil tried to sit up only to find himself completely immobilized. Glancing down he could barely make out a band across his chest. Links rattled from where his hands were cuffed down by his sides and while he couldn't see his feet he could feel his ankles were similarly restrained.

He tried to wet his lips, his mouth felt cotton dry and his head pounded in time with his heart.

The mattress he was on was thin, he could feel the springs from the metal bed frame digging through. He tried to rattle the frame but it didn't shift at all, probably bolted to the ground.

The light flared on, it felt like needles shooting into skull and he couldn't hold back his moan.

"Oh Lieutenant, you're awake!"

Blinking through the pain Gil tried to level a glare at the man who'd just entered the room, it was hard when all he could feel was a cold wave of fear. Tom Prescott, the serial killer he and his team had been hunting for days, was standing in the doorway. "Mr. Prescott."

Tom grinned manically, clapping with glee. "Oh I can tell you are going to be fun Lieutenant."

He went to work bench on the far side of the room, blocking Gil's view as he proceeded to pull out several tools. He whistled as he did so.

Gil knew this was all meant to unsettle him. He was loathe to admit it was working. He knew what Tom did to his victims, what was going to happen to him. His team wasn't expecting to hear from him until tomorrow morning, no one would know he was missing. He struggled to keep his breathing even, to not let his growing apprehension show through.

Tom wheeled back around, twirling a pair of scissors in his fingers. "You know the first time I saw you I knew had to get your attention somehow. I loved watching you chase me." He clambered onto the bed, straddling Gil's lap. Gil clenched his jaw and maintained angry eye contact and trying to project the sense of calm that he was rapidly losing. Tom dragged his scissors down his captive's chest slowly. "Your whole team was just so pretty. But you Lieutenant, you're something else. Captivating." Gil breathed out sharply when the point of the blades were pressed sharply into his sternum. "So I had to capture you."

"Prescott. Tom. You don't want to do this."

Tom leaned heavily onto the bound man, his breath hot and wet on Gil's neck "Oh Lieutenant, I really really do." He turned and bit hard on Gil's earlobe before pulling back dragging the scissors all the way down to the hem of the black turtleneck. He started cutting, the points of the scissors lightly scratching with every snip. When he finally cut through the last threads at the neck he began idly drawing the points up and down the line of Gil's throat, leaving faint red welts in its trail.

"The NYPD-" Gil paused when the scissors were pressed harder onto his adam's apple "my team will be coming for me Tom."

Tom grinned happily. "I hope so. I really really hope they do. It's been a while since I've had someone who could properly enjoy my work, and you Lieutenant, you're going to be a masterpiece."

He pushed the pieces of the turtle neck apart, exposing a broad expanse of chest. "The works Da Vinci could've created if he'd had a canvas like this." He bent down and licked a long strip up to the crook of Gil's neck, pausing to breath in deep. "Oh now that's what a man smells like." He quickly cut through the sleeves of the shirt and tugged it out from under Gil, tossing the scraps off to the side. He took a moment to stroke up and down the newly bared arms before he pulled himself off the bed and towards the door, pausing to put the scissors back on the workbench. "We'll get started properly in the morning Lieutenant. Feel free to make as much noise as you'd like," he waved around at the room. "Completely soundproof."

The door shut, the bolt slide in place, the light flicked off, once again bathing the room in darkness.

Gil began thrashing against his restraints desperately but nothing budged. Defeated he forced himself to relax back down. He couldn't give into panic. His team would find him. Malcolm will find him. It was only a matter of time and all he had to do was hold out until then. He just had to keep his faith in his people and he would be fine.

It would all be fine."

Malcolm shot up screaming, his dream still vivid in his head. Breathing heavily he glanced around his room, everything was the same, all his demons fading away into the dreamscape until just a strange deep nagging dread remained. He'd been unsettled, knocked off off-kilter, disturbed by his dreams before but had he had this crushing feeling of doom. He remembered that was a common sign of an impending heart attack. After a brief consideration Malcolm decided that he was not about to go into cardiac arrest. He was also not going to be getting any more sleep tonight. Sighing deeply he released himself from his cuffs and pulled out his mouth guard. A quick glance at the clock told him he'd gotten all of 3 hours of sleep. A record really.

He padded over to his bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face. the bags under his eyes were more pronounced than ever. This case had been hard on all of them. A sadistic serial killer on a spree that threatened to rival his father's. Some killers, Malcolm was loathe to admit, he could understand. An all consuming vision, a drive for revenge against those that wronged him, that made some sort of twisted sense. But this guy just seemed to want cause pain for pain's sake.

There was no attempt at art or finesse, though he did seem to manage to keep his victims alive for at least three days. There was no pattern to his victims, he'd kidnapped a young hispanic boy right outside of his middle school in the Bronx, and the next week had taken a 87 year old white woman out of a nursing home out in Queens, and he's killed all manner in between. There wasn't even a pattern in what he did to each victim, he'd burn some and waterboard others. Sexual assault was common but not consistent, biting, cutting, branding, electrocution, anything he could do to torture was done but in no discernible pattern. Even Dr. Whitly had been perturbed when he saw the nature of the kills.

"There's just no style here." He'd complained, a surprising look of disgust on his face while flipping through the pictures of the crime scene. "Just brutality without meaning."

They had figured out who the man responsible was almost immediately, he'd made no effort to keep from leaving DNA or fingerprints on any of his victims. But the man, Thomas Prescott, had old old money, and a lot of it, and money was great at hiding many a sin. Despite flooding the city with the man's picture and description his whereabouts remained a mystery.

Fifteen bodies and counting. They had found his latest victim yesterday morning, a woman he'd snatched four days ago out of central park. Prescott would be on the hunt tonight.

The rush of adrenaline that accompanied his nightmares had finally faded, this new feeling of suffocating dread remained. Malcolm tried to think back on his dreams to figure out why. They'd been nothing new, the girl in the box, his father, John. Shaking his head to clear away the images he decided to do some yoga to try and relax.

What he really wanted to do was call Gil but it was 3 in the morning and the man had been running himself ragged on the case. Malcolm suspected it was the number of children that was really getting to Gil six had been under the age of sixteen. Additionally the last few scenes they had found were practically designed to get und Gil's skin. It was like he was taking every death that happened under his watch personally and it was starting to wear him down. Malcolm had considered talking to him about it, but unfortunately, he mused as he sank down into a warrior one position, he really didn't have a leg to stand on in regards to healthy habits pursuing a case.

Malcolm worked through his katas, the dread remained though it had faded from crushing suffocation to a more irritating prickly sensation. It was 5:30. Gil would probably be up by now, he could give into the urge to call, though if Gil wasn't awake he was loathe to steal any amount of sleep the man had managed to get just because of a dream. He wiped the sweat he'd worked up off his brow, he could just head into the precinct now. He could talk to Gil there.

Course of action decided he rolled up his mat and headed off to take a quick shower.