Unspoken

by crimsonstain

Summary:

After a new detective is transferred and put under Detective Mark Hoffman's supervision, a power struggle originates as secrets are brought to the surface; neither willing to back down, yet neither willing to admit their real reasons for not wanting to. However, when the time comes they are forced to make their conflicts aside to focus on the larger scheme of things.

[Work in Progress]

tbh I just wanted to write a dark self-indulgent fic for myself since Hoffman had been eating at my brain like a parasite the last couple of weeks...

Chapter 1: Beggining

Summary:

A new face arrives at the precinct. Detective Hoffman couldn't care less.

Notes:

◘ T/W = I'm not good with tags and since this is my first time posting here. PLEASE BEWARE; this fic revolves around a toxic and violent 'relationship'. This is not safe nor sane. And idk if it's necessary to mention but, this is the Saw universe: there is going to be blood, guts, and descriptions of corpses.

◘ A/N = This fic is based on the canon events from Saw III→Saw VII. It also ties an original secondary plot to the narrative, so canon events might be slightly displaced in time but not altered.

◘ Also, I'd like to thank my awesome friends for keeping me daily motivated this last three weeks so I could bring to life this twisted little creation of mine. ❤︎‬‬

The precinct was alive with noise that day, phones ringing, papers slapping against desks, uniformed officers rushing past with that rehearsed urgency of people pretending to have everything under control. In the midst of it, Detective Mark Hoffman sat slouched in his chair, half-listening as yet another detective droned on about case files piling up in the corner. He didn’t bother to lift his eyes when the captain walked in with someone new trailing behind him.

“Detective Carter. Transferred from the south division,” the captain introduced.

The new arrival was young compared to most in the department, his presence almost soft in contrast to the hardened detectives scattered around. A new face that didn’t yet carry the wear and cynicism stamped into most men in the room. His smile was polite, almost disarmingly so. To Hoffman, it just felt out of place. Another rookie still trying to prove he belonged.

Hoffman barely looked up at first. Slouched at his desk, he thumbed through reports on the Jigsaw case, his blue eyes hollowed by fatigue and something heavier. But when the Captain gestured toward him, Hoffman finally lifted his gaze.

The captain handed Carter a stack of files and added almost offhandedly, “Detective Carter, you’ll be working under Detective Hoffman on the Jigsaw case. Your are to follow his orders and assist whenever needed.” 

Hoffman grunted in acknowledgment, offering a glance rather than a handshake. Carter, however, smiled and extended his hand anyway.

“I look forward to working with you, Detective.”

Hoffman accepted the gesture, his grip firm, eyes measuring. He didn’t like honors. He didn’t like fresh faces shoved into his territory; much less at this particular investigation. 

"We’ll see if you can keep up.”

  

---

 

At first, Carter seemed exactly what he appeared to be: diligent, the kind of detective who over-prepared for every meeting and meticulously organized case files. He asked questions. Sometimes too many. Mostly simple ones that made Hoffman roll his eyes, sometimes sharp ones that that had no right in being so specific. All the same, Hoffman brushed him off with his usual curt replies. 

But, occasionally, during long hours poring over crime scene photos and twisted bits of metal, Carter would show flashes of something else. His eyes lingered on traps, not with horror, but something harder to point out. 

At  crime scenes, Carter’s face carried the right mask of horror at the grotesque setups left behind, but there were times in which Hoffman would've sworn to have caught a flicker of something behind his eyes. Whether merely curiosity or something else, it was not certain. 

It was subtle, most wouldn’t notice. But Hoffman did. Even if he didn't fully comprehend what it meant.

  Some other days, Hoffman would catch Carter staring, not at the evidence, but at him. There was no malice in it, only something close to calculation, as if he was trying to solve him as carefully as he connected the strings of the case. 
  
  Hoffman crossed all this as mere curiosity. A young ambitious mind trying to grasp the world around him; a world Hoffman understood far better than he cared to admit. 
  
  Hoffman ignored it. But late at night, when the precinct fell quiet, curiosity resonated idly in the back of his head. 

Carter, in turn, wasn’t blind to Hoffman’s cracks either. The rumors. Some of the whispers of Hoffman’s methods: sometimes justice served but not always by the book. He seemed to be the kind of man who could do the 'right thing' the wrong way, and live with it. 

It gnawed at his head; curiosity getting the best of him as he became determined to discover what was buried underneath the surface.

Chapter 2: Connection

Late one night, Carter stayed behind at the precinct with the excuse of needing time to finish checking some important witness statement. 

He decided to comb through older files. Traced connections that weren’t obvious to most, but to someone who had once stood quietly at the edges of John Kramer’s work, they began to form a pattern. 

He had known John. Had even helped him on occasions; though always at a distance. Always carefully shielded in shadows; John had instructed to keep it that way. 

"Until the time was right" he he had said; and it had been a long time already. He was only ever assigned small tasks; never drawn into the core of the games. 

And at the time, Carter hadn’t questioned why. But now, watching Hoffman, the quiet way he seemed to know too much more than he let on, Carter became invested in piecing together the missing fragments. 
  
The nights became careful games of chase. Carter followed Hoffman outside of work, keeping distance, learning his movements. He watched him vanish without a trail. 

At work, he noted the way Hoffman’s expression changed when he thought no one was looking, a simmering darkness that seemed to burn just beneath the surface. 

He had traced Hoffman’s past. Some incidents: Rigg, Gibson. Patterns emerged. Moments where Hoffman bent the law, where morality blurred, where justice was twisted. Each thread seemed to help weave Hoffman's truth. 

The breakthrough came with Seth Baxter. 

Carter had long since learnt of the case, the way Seth’s death had fit the Jigsaw profile yet something about it rang hollow to him. It seemed sloppy. Worse still... it felt cruel. 

Carter knew enough about John’s work to recognize when something didn’t fit. And when compared with Hoffman’s history; Baxter’s connection to Angelina, the detective’s murdered sister, the puzzle pieces slid together with disturbing ease. 

The night he confirmed it, Carter didn’t confront him. Not immediately. Instead, he kept it for himself; he needed time. 

This wasn’t only about the revelation of Hoffman’s secret, but rather about the reflection it cast back on himself. 

For the first time, he wondered if John had intended this; if the events unfolding were part of some larger orchestration. 

---

 

When the day came, the confrontation was quiet. 

It unfolded at the back of the precinct, on the empty parking lot after hours. The hum of the street lamps filling the silence. Carter’s expression was calm, even gentle, but his words carried a weight Hoffman could not ignore. 

“You killed Seth Baxter,” no preamble, voice low enough only for the other man to hear. It was not an accusation, it was a fact. "Impressive... like a wolf hidden among sheep." 

Hoffman stopped mid walk, he met Carter’s gaze, searching for weakness, for doubt, but found only conviction. The yellow lights casted stark shadows on his face, an ironic display of what hid behind the surface.

 For a moment, neither spoke. Then Hoffman smirked faintly, though his eyes remained sharp, almost predatory, studying his surroundings with calculating eyes. 
 
 “And what does that make of you?” he asked, almost dismissively.

Carter’s lips curved, just slightly. “Someone who understands more than you think.”

  “S'that so?” Hoffman said, his voice low, dangerous. He moved slowly and leaned against the side of his car, arms crossed but his hand lingered dangerously close to his pocket. "How long you've known this?"

  "Two weeks. At first, I thought you were another corrupt cop, someone who didn't mind getting his hands dirty if that meant getting the job done... turns out I was only partly mistaken." Carter replied, his stare never leaving the older detective, ready to counter him if need be. 
  
  He paced around, slowly, measuring. Under the dim lights they were just two hungry animals ready to pounce. 
  
  “John always told me there would be others… but it didn't strike me that you had what it takes to be one of them.”

  That made Hoffman pause. The implication behind those few words kicking in. The exchange suddenly becoming a much more interesting game. 
  
  At this point it felt as if they were both circling each other, although neither moved. Never breaking eye contact, measuring who would breach the space between them first. 
  
  “Never mentioned you. Why should I trust you?"

  "Never said you should " There was a hint of mockery in that, but it carried a subtle warning. "I was instructed to stay behind, to wait till the time was right. I believe there's a reason even if Kramer hasn't fully disclosed it yet."

  Hoffman seemed to ponder for a minute "Maybe.." He straightened. Moved closer. Leaning into his face as he warned:
  
 "But you better watch your step ..." His words low, something close to a snarl  "...I don’t take kindly to competition."

For a moment, they stood there, locked in a silence that left them both bare to the eyes of the other. 

It was recognition. Both finally seeing each other through the cracks of their masks.

Chapter 3: Petty Feuds

After the parking lot confrontation, neither man mentioned word of their encounter again. At least, not out loud. At work, their days kept as usual. Cases, paperwork, leads. But just below that thin veil, every word, every gesture between them was like a move on a chessboard.

Carter had found how power hungry the older detective was, how much he craved control, to feed his inflated ego. But, he also could see deeper, the part of him that grew restless as he felt cornered by the police discoveries. And for that, Carter always succeeded in getting under Hoffman’s skin with precision. 

It was the subtle things. A seemingly harmless comment about 'long hours' that made Hoffman glance up sharply, knowing the younger detective was hinting at his unexplained disappearances. A pointed remark, spoken with that innocent half-smile, while Hoffman felt the jab hit its mark. 

At the precinct, they would both brush past each other in narrow corridors, close enough that their shoulders bumped. No apology. Just a fleeting smirk, as though daring each to react in front of their peers. 

Hoffman played his part, stone-faced, unflinching. But inside, the irritation built up. 
And sure enough, Hoffman wasn’t above his own counters; two could play this game after all. 

He’d lean over Carter’s desk after swarming the younger with reports and a seemingly endless list of tasks, letting the silence stretch uncomfortably as he sat across him, pointing out minor mistakes in his paperwork, his voice pitched just loud enough for anyone passing by to hear the condescension. He’d hold Carter’s gaze a beat too long, daring him to break his well studied character. 

No one else noticed. This was a game just for the both of them. 
Every exchange was calculated. Every word was a test.

 

---

 

After weeks of getting on each others nerves, it was inevitable that their petty feud would boil over. The tension finally snapped one evening when the two found themselves alone in the evidence room. A comment too sharp, a look too long, and suddenly Hoffman had Carter pinned against the cold metal of a cabinet, his forearm pressed hard into his chest.

“You think yourself so clever,” Hoffman growled, his face inches from Carter’s, cold blue eyes piercing. Carter’s breath hitched, but it was far from fear. His lips curved into a small, almost teasing smile. 

“I know I am. And it bothers you, doesn’t it? That you can’t quite figure me out.”

For a beat, neither moved. Their glares locked, a silent battle, the air between them thick with a mixture of hostility and something darker that neither would admit. 

Then Carter pushed back, sudden and forceful, twisting out of Hoffman’s grip and shoving him hard enough that the older man stumbled back into the shelves. The clatter of falling binders echoed through the room.

“Don’t mistake my manners for weakness, detective” Carter said, his voice calm, almost soothing, though his eyes burned with fire. “You might tell yourself you control this game, but I don’t play by your rules.”

Hoffman straightened, his chest heaving, and for the first time there was a glimmer of something else mingled with his anger. He wiped at the corner of his mouth where he had bitten his lip, then let out a short, humorless laugh. “You’re crossing a dangerous line here.” he warned.

Carter leaned closer, his eyes never leaving the other's, lowering his voice so it was barely above a whisper. “So are you.”

Both men stood there, under the dim fluorescent light, silence deafening. They made sure to straighten their clothes, bruises hidden under sleeves and smirks traded like weapons. 

Neither of them said it aloud, but both understood what was happening. This was a silent test, both willing to determine who would bend first. 

Yet, underneath the violence was a twisted sort of fascination in which they both reveled. 

Carter’s polite facade cracked only in these moments, revealing a hunger for control that rivaled Hoffman’s own. And Hoffman, between his layered anger, couldn’t deny the rush he felt every time Carter pushed back. 

Every time he looked into those deceptively innocent eyes and saw a reflection of his own darkness staring back.

 

---

 

Chapter 4: Like The Old Days

There had been a knock at the door and Carter came inside without waiting for a reply. 

Hoffman didn't acknowledge his presence with a glance, he just muttered a low "What is it?". 

An envelope was thrown on the desk. It landed with a soft, dismissive slap. "Work," was all Carter said, his voice flat, his expression giving away how little enjoyment he took from the implication of working with Hoffman. Especially so since both couldn't seem to coexist in the same space without wanting to tear out each other's throats.

Hoffman’s eyes narrowed. He didn't answer. He simply lowered the file he'd been holding, meeting Carter’s gaze head-on.

The note inside the envelope had a recognizable style. He understood perfectly then the kind of 'work' that they both were needed to carry out.

 

---

 

The warehouse was dimly lit, filled with the smell of steel and grease. Shadows loomed over the various tools and half-built traps that littered the space. There was a silent, almost ritualistic feeling to the atmosphere. The work, preparing for the next game, something that had become second nature to them as time passed.  

Carter wasn’t meant to be there anymore. He’d been the the unseen hands who once carried parts, cleaned tools, patched wounds. He’d left years ago, with Kramer’s blessing, when the work grew heavier and the shadows too thick. But now… now John’s body sagged thinner in his chair, his hands trembling. Amanda was tethered to him, more caretaker than apprentice. And Hoffman bristled with the need to control everything.

Despite their reluctance to work together, instructions had been clear, both men were needed to carry out this next test. And for a while, they had found their rhythm. Even if behind the barriers they both held, something else simmered. 

Some days, the room shifted. A different workshop. A different time. 

A dim light. Red coating his hands, running down his arms. Whether the liquid was his o someone else's he couldn't quite remember. There was a comforting feeling to it. Warmth spreading, overflowing. The soft stream pattered on the floor with a symmetric rhythm. 

Like the slow countdown of a clock.
Tick... Tack...

There was a voice that resonated in the void. Almost too quiet in the loudness of the throbbing pulse at his ears.
“I know you crave silence... But I will not grant you that.
I will give you noise instead.... Purpose is a voice louder than despair.”

The sound of metal clattering on the workbench snapped Carter back. The fragmented memory faded. The world seemed to move again. 

Hoffman was scowling, tightening a vice around a pipe piece. Amanda brushed past Carter, her shoulder almost grazing his. She didn’t flinch. Maybe she didn't disliked him because he didn’t test her the way Hoffman did.

“Carter.” John’s voice called him forward, soft but cutting through the noise. “You already know why you’re here."

Carter stepped closer, gaze flicking once toward Hoffman. The older detective didn’t look up, but his jaw flexed.

“I know,” Carter said evenly.

 

---

 

Still, even with days passing, each encounter bristled with tension. Every shared task turning into a competition. The arguments resumed quick. Defiant stares, smug remarks.

"I'll handle the heavy lifting and the actual work. You can handle the notes." Hoffman had remarked, tone mocking and condescending. 

Day by day it had crawled under his skin; tension simmering

Until it snapped.

One day, Carter tackled him outright after Hoffman wouldn't quit his stupidly arrogant attitude. They had wrestled across the floor until John’s voice cut through the chaos, sharp and disappointed. 

 

With time, Hoffman would soon start to notice how Carter’s act cracked at the very edges. The flash of coldness in his factions, the way his fingers lingered over traps as though savoring every twisted gear that made them. And Carter saw through Hoffman’s facade of control: the bitterness, the supposed self-righteous justification he clung to. 

They both had embraced part of Kramer's philosophy, yet neither would admit the truth behind their own motivations. 

And deep down, in some dark corner of their minds, both knew what neither wanted to admit aloud: they were not so different from each other; they both craved this.

 

---

 

Their days passed like that. Working quietly. Tension toned down. Each man focused on their respective tasks. 

Hoffman moved with precision, reviewing the instructions that were left for some of the mechanisms. Double checked just in case.

Meanwhile, the younger apprentice devoted himself to running tests on functionality. Hands steady. Movements swift, as if he had done it countless times. Checking. Making sure everything was up to the standard he knew John would expect. 

The work was done. They were exhausted.
None broke the quiet, the moment seeming almost sacred. 

The younger detective paced slowly around the display, assessing, contemplating, admiring. 

"Just like the old days.” A barely audible whisper, unintentional, but heard all the same. 

Hoffman’s eyes flicked toward him, brief, sharp, calculating. He didn’t like the way those few words sounded. As if Carter had always belonged there. As if he still longed for a place in between greased gears and walls splattered with blood. 

Even with his best effort to conceal it, he was not entirely comfortable with the idea of Carter being so intimate with Jigsaw’s work. 

“Don’t get too comfortable. This is still my game." It was shot cold and short, a warning.

Hoffman prided himself in having earned his place in John's legacy through blood and sweat, and he was not about to share the stage with anyone else. 

There was no tease this time, Carter's eyes never leaving the work before him. "You know as well as I do this isn’t a one-man show anymore, Detective" 

And as much as Hoffman hated to acknowledge, he was right. John’s instructions were clear. They were in this together now.

And so, Hoffman said nothing, but his gaze lingered. Carter’s confidence wasn’t bluster; it was too measured, too calm. And that made him grind his teeth. 

Slowly, expression unreadable, Carter drifted towards a cluttered shelf, his hand brushing across the surface till a particular object caught his eye. He picked it up casually,  fingers running over metallic sharp edges like he was handling something precious. There was a glimmer of something hard to name in his face, an strange mixture of nostalgia and something more, something deeper.

"You know, I couldn't stop wondering if it’s true... what John said about you the other day." A dark amusement in his voice "So, tell me, Detective… do you like how brutality feels?"

The question cut straight through the room. Hoffman’s jaw tightened. 
He didn’t answer, but the spark behind those blue eyes seemed to be confession enough. 

Carter held the device up, letting the steel glint under the dim hanging light. 

"I've built this one... long time ago" 

The sentence left hanging, the device positioned carefully on one of the nearby test mannequins. Movements deliberate, savoring the silence. There was a faint smile, his eyes not on the procedure but locked on the older detective's. 

The question remained unanswered, but there was no need to convey what his factions already had.

A timer clicked alive. 

His whole body language betraying him with every tick of the countdown. 

"You can think you’ve got everyone fooled. But... I see you. I've already seen what lies underneath the mask."
  
Each tick of the device echoed in the air. Hoffman didn’t flinch, but it was his stillness which gave him away all the same. His eyes never leaving the mechanism, anticipation building, waiting for that final snap. 

The trap activated with a sickening crunch, gears and springs recoiling, plaster shards exploding across the floor. 

The sound resonated in the room. 

Then, only silence remained. 

Hoffman’s eyes tracked the remains, a flicker of satisfaction betraying him. But when he looked up, his gaze was sharp, assessing Carter with new weight. 

The stillness between them spoke volumes. 

His pace was calm, circling slowly, his voice low, tainted with danger: 

"You talk like you’ve got me figured out. But you’re no better...the way you play them at the precinct? You act like you don’t have the stomach for this. But here..." He lets it hang, smirking. 

"I know you want them to suffer just as much as I do." 

He knows he is pressing too much, too close to the line, but the temptation is too much. 
He keeps moving forward, almost too close, almost too much, almost not enough. 

"Only difference is... I do have what it takes to get the job done. I don't hesitate."

For a brief instant, the whole room felt claustrophobic, the closeness, the heat, the sharpness of their stares too much, but neither willing to back down. 

The silence broke. 

Carter's voice soft, hushed. "I guess people believe what they want to see. They see a kid with a badge, still wet behind the ears, and they don’t think twice." 

There is a blur of movement, a snap, too precise, too fast. 

The sting of a sharpened metallic edge pressed coldly against the broader man's throat. 

"But you're wrong about one thing, Detective; I might stand on John's side...but don't think for one second that I'm any less dangerous for it" The words hung heavy. Not so much a threat, but a promise. An invitation.

For a moment, Hoffman searched his face for hesitation. Found none. The man in front of him simply stood there, utterly unflinching. 

There was a low, humorless chuckle, almost a growl, as the older detective spoke. 

"You should be careful... You better don't go making promises you cannot keep" Still, the heat of his words wasn't there. Instead, it echoed an implicit respect that both of them understood without further words. 

And when the revelation came, as both remained there, their true colors bared, Hoffman saw an opportunity. 

And for the first time since John had taken them in, both of them didn’t feel entirely alone in the darkness.

Neither spoke of it. They didn’t need to. 

Notes:

◘ yes, I know the line I included is from another moment of the canon timeline... yes, I realized too late and was too lazy to change it, so let's just ignore that little fact...

Chapter 5: Day Shift

Their days resumed uneventful, dully. Regular work shifts at the station. Time went by slow, steady. Their last exchange had made something between them shift, even if neither could pinpoint what it was. 

Carter leaned casually against his own desk, pen tapping rhythmically against his notepad. An easy smile plastered across his face as he exchanged pleasantries with another detective. The contrast was stark: there was an undeniable warmth to him, in his soft and well spoken demeanor; still, a shadow hung heavy over the precinct. 

Every now and then, Hoffman would watch from across the room. Face unreadable, as always, but eyes sharp, dissecting Carter’s every movement. He knew better. He had seen the ruthless precision that lies beneath Carter’s exterior. The way he dismantles traps just to piece them back together. The way he talks about violence as though it were second nature. And then, watching him play his role so flawlessly, Hoffman felt something strange tug at him. Something dangerously personal.

As hours passed, the noises of the precinct died down as most of the detectives were either gone or buried in their paperwork. Carter approached Hoffman’s desk. His posture was relaxed, a soft smile on his face, but his voice was low, pitched for Hoffman alone, “You’re watching me again."

Hoffman didn’t look up from his file. “You make it hard not to. It’s a clever little act you put on,” he said with that same calculated coldness. A hint of mockery coated his words. “You better watch it… smile too much and people start wondering what you’re hiding.”

The words were harmless yet carried weight. Carter tilted his head, the faintest edge of venom in his tone. “What’s the matter, detective? Afraid that if they stare too close they'll find out both of us are not so different?” 

It was a knife slipped under the ribs, deliberate and intimate. The corner of Hoffman’s mouth twitched, not a smile, but something near it. Hoffman pinned Carter with a stare, a silent warning. He should have felt the urge to silence him, but instead he found himself wanting to see just how far Carter would dare to push. 

The air between was tight, something close to anticipation. Not hostility, yet even more volatile. Both of them took notice. 

Carter didn't back down, didn’t play coy. Instead, he stepped closer, leaning a hand casually on Hoffman’s desk as though showing him a file. But the angle, the closeness, the way Carter lowered his voice, it was a deliberate, measured act. 

“You keep watching me like that, Detective, and people are gonna start asking questions."

Hoffman didn't let the corner of his mouth betray the smirk that wanted to form there. But his eyes held Carter’s for a moment too long. The air between them charged, intimate, in a way neither of them was willing to name. 

And when the answer came, it was steady, quieter. 

“Let them.”

Chapter 6: Late Hours

The station kept thinning out until it was just the two of them. Hoffman set down his pen with deliberate weight. “You’re good, I'll give you that,” he said, his gravelly voice breaking the silence.

Carter looked up from the report he had been typing, fake innocence all over his features. “At what?”

“Lying,” Hoffman replied nonchalant, leaning back in his chair. “You’ve got them all fooled.” He smirked, almost approving. “Almost had me fooled too, once.”

Carter chuckled softly, closing the file in front of him. “Well, that’s the trick, isn’t it?” His tone was light, but there was an undercurrent now. “Though I think you like it more than you’d care to admit.”

Hoffman’s shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly. Almost. 

There was a bit of truth there. He did. Not just the deception, but the danger hidden underneath that pulled him in. But he would die rather than admit defeat.

Carter stood and crossed the room, each step measured, his usual composure stripped down to something sharper now that it was just the two of them. He stopped by Hoffman’s desk, picked up a pen lying there, and balanced it on his fingers, his voice dropping.

“You can’t decide, can you?” Carter said quietly. “Whether you want to break me… or see if I really got what it takes to break you” Not smooth. No concealment this time. An open invitation disguised as threat.

For a long moment, neither man moved. Their eyes locked, a silent standoff, tension like a wire drawn taut. Both knew the danger of being this close, neither seemed to care. They were nearing a territory they might not easily come back from. Yet they didn't pull away.

Hoffman gave the faintest smirk, a shadow of want laced with something far darker. “Maybe I don’t need to decide.” 

The clock on the wall ticked, loud in the quiet. The weight of unspoken things pressed heavily between them. Neither of them trusted the other and yet, here they were, drawn in anyway. Gravitating towards each other. Craving to dive deeper. Craving the heat, the adrenaline. Waiting for the moment the tension snapped. 

The younger detective’s eyes narrowed, faint amusement playing at his lips. “Do you really think you have what it takes to make me slip, Detective?.”

Hoffman’s chair creaked as he pushed it back, rising to his full height. He was bigger, broader, his stance emanating authority, and in a single step he cut the distance between them. 

The air shifted. 

“Oh, but you already did,” Hoffman said lowly, his voice sharp as broken glass. 

Still, Carter didn’t flinch. Instead, he tilted his head, a calculated gesture that read less like submission and more like challenge. “You sure? And what are you gonna do about that?”

Hoffman’s hand moved suddenly, caught Carter’s tie, yanking him forward just enough that their faces nearly touched. “You really don’t want me to answer that,” Hoffman growled. His grip was tight, but there was restraint in it too. 

Carter’s breath came steady, too steady, enough to be infuriating. He looked Hoffman dead in the eye, not even a twitch of worry, lips curving in a faint smirk. “Maybe I do.”

The clock on the wall ticked once, twice. 
Neither man moved. 

The tension between them was like a storm caught at its breaking point. 

Hoffman’s hold on the tie slackened, not releasing, not yet, but leaving just enough space to feel the heat of Carter’s presence without crossing the line any further.

“You think you’re the only one who knows how to play this game? You think yourself so clever with that snarky attitude of yours” Hoffman said, his voice gritty, dangerously so. “But keep pushing… and you’ll find out real quick what it costs you to lose.”

For the first time, Carter’s expression softened, not with fear, but something more unnervingly curious. Like he was daring Hoffman to prove it.

Hoffman's grip tightened suddenly, slamming him against the wall. The impact echoed across the room. Carter let out a short grunt as he lost his leverage, but it wasn’t pain that flashed in his eyes. There was something darker, alive, almost too far from discomfort to be good.

“Guess you don’t scare easy,” Hoffman muttered through clenched teeth, pupils almost devouring the blue of his cold eyes. His arm pressed hard across Carter’s chest, pinning him in place.

Carter’s lips parted in a hiss of breath, half-laugh, half-taunt. “That’s the problem with most people, detective… they break too fast.” 

The older man shoved back, harder. The struggle was sudden, sharp. The arm moved to press directly against Carter’s throat, his jaw tight, muscles straining. For a moment, he looked in control. Dominance carved into every line of his stance. But Carter let out a choked laugh. Even as the pressure forced his breath shallow, his eyes glittered with unnerving challenge; reflection of a want they both understood but none wanted to show. 

The grip faltered just slightly, enough for Carter to twist free and shove Hoffman back into the edge of the desk. Pain shot up Hoffman’s lower spine, and for a split second he let out a low growl that betrayed what he so carefully was trying to conceal. 

Carter leaned in, close, chest heaving, breath hot against Hoffman’s ear. “Feels good, doesn’t it?... Losing just a little.” His tone was mocking, but beneath it laid something more. Like he had caught a glimpse of a secret Hoffman thought deeply buried.

Hoffman’s hand shot out, gripping the back of Carter’s neck, pulling him in tight by the hair at his nape, a gesture that mingled violence and the weight of something unspoken. Their foreheads nearly collided, a scene too intimate. They remained close enough that their breaths collided in ragged bursts. Hoffman stared down at him, as if searching into his eyes for something, even if he wasn't quite sure what it was. 

"Fuck. You" Every word dripped with venom, though his voice had slipped into something less convincing, less certain. Those words felt empty, even to himself. 

The desk groaned under their weight as Carter pressed Hoffman down, only to be thrown off balance by the detective’s surge of strength. 

Carter laughed low, a sound almost guttural, when Hoffman’s fist buried itself into his side. He absorbed the pain, his eyes locked on the other.

"Careful, detective" Carter rasped, voice roughened from the exertion, "I might begin to think you are starting to get off on this." he shot back, eyes cutting straight through Hoffman’s barriers, a smile that lacked any real warmth on his slightly parted lips. 

He didn’t need to say more; the suggestion lingered, poisonous, undeniable. 
That did it. Realization hit. 

Both stilled, as if the words had drawn blood in a way fists never could. 
The weight of the silence dropped heavy. 

There was the briefest moment in which all subtlety drifted, all pretense vanished, something beyond the need to provoke and prove themselves crept from behind their masks. 

Hoffman shoved Carter back with a final burst, not a display of power anymore, but to put an end to it. Carter stumbled a step, straightened, and for the first time didn’t push forward again. Instead, he smoothed down his shirt, his early composure fading into something harder to read. 

Hoffman tugged his jacket back into place, jaw tight, refusing to meet Carter’s eyes. Neither spoke, both pretending that nothing had slipped loose in that moment. No admission, no crack over the surface. 

“We’re done here.” Hoffman muttered, tone flat, distant, but his hand shook just slightly as he adjusted his sleeve. Carter chuckled under his breath, quiet, bitter, as he grabbed his coat and left the room. 

They left separately, both carrying the same unspoken weight on their shoulders.
Both determined to bury it deep where neither of them could reach for it again.

Chapter 7: Bruises

The lock clicked shut, and silence filled the room. Carter leaned against the door for a moment, his chest still tight with leftover adrenaline. A quiet, half-broken laugh escaped him. He pushed himself toward the kitchen, shedding his jacket along the way.

The bruises would come up quick, he knew. He pulled up his shirt and his fingertip traced the first mark already purpling along his rib. It looked almost breathtaking; a blooming violet against the landscape of old scars. A reminder.

He opened the fridge, grabbed a beer, and leaned against the counter. The smirk slid onto his face slowly, curling like smoke. “You almost lost yourself, detective,” he murmured to no one. The thought made him grin wider. He knew the truth: Hoffman had felt it too.

And that was what thrilled him most. Not the pain, not the force, but that flicker. That moment when Hoffman’s mask had cracked, when something uninvited had shown through. Carter tilted the bottle to his lips, savoring the bitter taste of victory.

It wasn’t about a power. It was about seeing Hoffman lose control. 
And he just couldn’t get enough of it.

 

---

 

The shower scalded his skin, steam filling the bathroom until it stung his eyes. Hoffman braced his hands against the slick tile, head bowed, the torrent of water rushing over him as if it could strip away the memory. He scrubbed harder than he needed to, jaw clenched. Every bruise Carter left on him pulsed, the moment etched into his flesh. He hated it. Hated the thought of giving Carter the satisfaction of seeing him lose control.

Hated even more that part of him had leaned into it.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?... Losing just a little.”

The words echoed, unwanted.

“No.” His voice was low, bitten off, but the denial rang hollow in the steam. 

He shut off the water abruptly, grabbed a towel, and stalked into the bedroom. He dressed quickly, as if covering the bruises would silence the truth underneath. He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. He told himself it wouldn’t happen again. That Carter had just gotten under his skin, and next time he’d shut it down before it went too far.

And yet… a ghost of the moment lingered. The closeness. The heat. 
The flash of satisfaction when Carter had fought back.

Hoffman pressed his palms into his eyes until he saw sparks, forcing the thought out of his head. 
This couldn’t happen again. 

But beneath all the denial, buried deep and unspoken, the truth remained: 
He wasn’t sure he wanted it to stop.

 

Chapter 8: Angel Trap

There had been a call that morning. An urgent one.

The place was like a carcass of old concrete and rot, its damp walls streaked with rust and mold. The air was impregnated with the stench of decay and the coppery smell of coagulated blood. On the floor dirt mingled with the dark pool of dried blood. From the ceiling, Detective Allison Kerry’s body hung, suspended by a set of chains. Her ripped ribcage splayed grotesquely as a mockery of wings. 

Carter followed Hoffman into the gloom under the thin pretense that he was assisting on the case under Hoffman’s supervision. No questions were asked. He blended easily into the scene. He stayed behind just observing and taking note of the display. The way in which he camouflaged so easily his morbid fascination with the macabre scenario was an impressive play to watch in itself.   

On the other hand, Officer Rigg knelt before the body, devastation carved across his features. His grief was raw, uncontained, guilt bleeding from behind his eyes with every glance he cast upward. Deep down, Carter could tell Rigg blamed himself for Kerry's fate. Hoffman’s reaction was of empathy, yet he scolded Rigg for recklessness, for charging in blind against his orders. He sent him home to recover and he seemingly reluctantly left the scene.

A couple of minutes later, an officer announced the arrival of two FBI agents who claimed they had matters to discuss with detective Hoffman. Carter remained at the back, pretending to take notes, observing, his attention firmly fixed on the new faces as they entered the scene. They both introduced themselves and let Hoffman know that they were the last ones to have contact with detective Kerry before her unfortunate end. Apparently, a cryptic message had been delivered to them by her.

Agents Strahm and Perez walked around the scene, methodical and sharp-eyed. They studied the trap, the corpse, the details. Perez crouched by Kerry’s suspended body, examining the lock of the mechanism that was at her feet.

“The lock was open,” she murmured. “She couldn’t get out.”

Hoffman moved closer, his expression blank. “It was constructed for her execution. It betrayed the rules.”

Perez narrowed her eyes at this. “Not a Jigsaw trap, then?”

Carter’s head lifted subtly. Curiosity stirred behind the surface. He waited for Hoffman’s reply.

“No,” Hoffman said, tone even. “Amanda Young, the accomplice- ” 

“This wasn’t done by Amanda Young.” Strahm cut in, swift and sharp as a blade.

The line was delivery with such a finality and conviction that Hoffman was at a loss of words for a moment.

The Agent explained his suspicion: Kerry’s trap required strength Amanda didn’t have. Someone else had to have been involved. Another accomplice that had escaped their radar so far. 

Hoffman clenched his jaw, a subtle movement, but Carter caught sight of it. There was a quiet fascination in watching how the ever so calculating and composed detective started to feel cornered. And yet, the answers Hoffman gave were practiced, convincing. Just not convincing enough for Strahm's ears. 

“Or someone else could have helped,” the agent finished, tone laced with implication.

Perez and Strahm finally stepped back, concluding their examination, and left the scene. From across the room, Carter watched Hoffman. He could almost hear the gears turning inside his head. A storm concealed behind those cold blue eyes. The game was changing. New players were now added to the board. That flicker of unease disguised as stillness did not go unnoticed. It was tempting. 

He stepped closer, careful not to step on Kerry's blood. He leant in, voice pitched down, a whisper. 

“Looks like someone’s starting to connect the dots.” His words were edged, taunting. “You might want to watch your step, Detective.” 

  

---

  
Back at the precinct, the atmosphere was still gloom. Rigg was in the office still buried in case files about Eric Matthews, haunted by guilt and consumed by his obsession with finding him alive. Hoffman dismissed him with stern orders: take vacation time, go home. Rigg obeyed reluctantly, leaving the office with his grief still clinging to him. 

The FBI stayed, special agent Strahm insisting on revising the details on the case. Files and crime scene photographs were spread out between them. Strahm stood, arms crossed, restlessness printed on every bit of his stance. His tone was tense as he went on about some of the latest leads the FBI could draw from the Jigsaw case, the message detective Kerry left them before she was found dead, and some other minor details.  

A small knock sounded and the door opened. Carter stepped in carrying a folder. “Sorry to interrupt” His tone was polite, smooth. “I just need to leave these reports for Detective Hoffman about the Jigsaw case.” It was a poor excuse, but an effective one nonetheless. Hoffman sat at the table, posture composed, face impassive. “Good. You can stay if you want. This is Agent Strahm, from the FBI. He’s here to assist with the investigation.”

“I saw you at the crime scene earlier, Agent,” Carter said, polite, charming. "Though I must admit, I couldn’t help but overhear that you believe there’s another Jigsaw accomplice." 

Strahm tilted his head. “Well, there is nothing precise. Yet. But we have reasons to suspect that, based on some of the traps not fitting Kramer’s philosophy of rehabilitation.”

Carter sat at the edge of the table, shuffling the papers he’d brought. “Actually, now that I think about it, it's curious that you mention it...” He tapped a report with a fingertip. “I remember I’ve noticed some inconsistencies in a few of these files, and I was hoping to get some insight on the matter. Subtleties, but they are there, if you know where to look.” 

Hoffman’s gaze snapped towards him, briefly, sharp. A warning.

Strahm leaned forward to see the page, narrowing his eyes, whether from genuine curiosity or suspicion it was hard to tell. 

“So you’re saying you figured out something the entire Bureau hasn’t?” 

Carter only offered him a smile, polite, persuasive. “It was just a respectful observation, Agent. I can only take an informed guess based on what the evidence tells us.” 

Strahm studied him for a moment, then his gaze slid to Hoffman. “And what do you think?” 

The agent was not convinced, of course. But Carter did not need him to believe him. He just needed him to doubt.

Hoffman gave a dismissive shrug. “I think the kid seem to have too much time on his hands." His tone was laced with a small amused chuckle before he went back to his usual seriousness. "We don’t have enough evidence to support a claim like that. So far, the only proven accomplice that we know of was Amanda Young. And unless we find concrete evidence of another, speculation won’t get us far.”

Strahm grunted, unconvinced. His phone buzzed, interrupting the conversation. He glanced at the screen, muttered, “I need to take this,” and left the room. 

For a moment there were no sounds, just the occasional flip of a page. Hoffman sat still at the table, eyes fixed on the scattered files, but it was clear his mind was elsewhere. He knew Strahm was dangerously close, and getting closer still. However, he knew it was just a matter of patience, Strahm was, after all, another pawn in this game. In the end, they all had a role to play on the bigger scheme of things.

Carter leaned back in his chair, the subtle trace of amusement on his face as he balanced a pen on his fingers. 

“You’ve got a bad habit, Carter,” Hoffman said at last, voice hushed, casual, though there was a subtle warning below “Stirring up hornets just to see if you’ll get stung.”

“Relax, detective.” Carter’s tone was calm, laced with that subtle smugness Hoffman hated. “If I wanted to bury you, you’d already be six feet under.” He leaned forward, flicking a sheet across the table with two fingers. “Maybe I just like watching you sweat.” 

The words had hit its mark. 

No one made him sweat. Not Strahm. Not the Bureau. 

And yet...the idea that Carter might expose him, even out of spite, or worse, even out of pure entertainment, gnawed at something deep inside him in a way that both infuriated and intrigued him. 

He rose, stepping closer. His voice dropped to a growl. “Whatever game you think you’re playing, remember you’re not untouchable. Keep this up, and you’ll find out just how replaceable you really are.”

The silence was suffocating. Carter chuckled softly, savoring it. 
No words. His grin widened, sharp, knowing. 

The door swung open.

Strahm re-entered, phone sliding into his pocket. 

“We’ve got another one. Victim’s not been identified yet. Coroner says he has been dead since last night. Looks like another one of Jigsaw’s games. Forensics are still there. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Chapter 9: The Sinner

Summary:

A new game surfaces. As Hoffman and Carter investigate, they realize a new player has joined their ranks.

The view of the cityscape was a blur of lights through the car windows. A haze of red tail lights and heavy droplets of rain slid down the glass like smears of blood. They arrived to the location: once a mental facility that had been closed down almost two decades ago for shady reasons. The building no doubt had seen better days. Crumbling bricks and shattered windows was all that was left behind. Hoffman ducked under the yellow tape, badge raised more out of habit than necessity. Carter followed closely behind. 

Inside it was no better. The air was damp, soured by stagnant water and rust. It added to the overall dark atmosphere of the room. Police floodlights cut through the darkness, illuminating over old medical equipment. In the background a subtle sound of dripping water echoed like a ticking clock. Strahm was already barking questions at the crime scene techs, his eyes scanning with that restless suspicion he never bothered to disguise.

The body was located at the far end of the facility's basement. The man who found it had claimed he had seen someone slipping out of the building after hearing strange noises. When he had gathered the courage to get inside he had made the gruesome discovery and alerted the police. 

At the center of the scene, the figure of a man frozen in eternal prayer. He was chained at the neck, forced into a kneeling position before a makeshift altar. His bound hands, wrapped tight in black tape, rested uselessly in front of him. His face was buried in a bronze basin lined with razor-sharp metal. Streaks of blood had overflown, painting the floorboards deep crimson. 

Strahm approached, voice sharp. “Well, what are we looking at here?” 

One of the forensic women straightened, “Male. Roughly sixty years of age. Caucasian. Estimated time of death about twenty-four hours, give or take. We haven’t been able to confirm an ID yet... given the state of his face. We’ll run his prints and dental records.” 

Hoffman remained beside the body, crouched, pretending to study the mechanism. In truth, his gaze lingered on Carter, who examined the device with almost unnatural intensity. There was a restlessness to his posture. Hoffman recognized that look. He didn’t need to ask; Carter already carried the same knowledge gnawing at Hoffman’s thoughts: this wasn’t John’s work.

Strahm folded his arms, jaw tight. “What about the trap? Where’s the tape?" 

The forensic pointed toward a battered record player near the body. Hoffman slipped on gloves, knelt, and pressed play. A distorted voice sounded, echoing against the crumbling walls of the room.

"Hello, Father. Right now you find yourself in a situation you might be familiar with; one of conversion. So tell me: are you prepared to repent for your sins? 

At this moment, you are tied to a device. When the timer starts, the chain around your neck will pull you toward the razor-lined basin in front of you. The same way you’ve let sin, vice, and corruption pull you down the wrong path. 

The only way to stop it is to give up that which has caused so much pain to others. The instrument of your sin. 

As the proverb goes: "The Lord detests lying lips,". Now, you have a chance to redeem yourself. The key to your freedom lies in your hands. 

Throughout the years you have preached about salvation. Now, it is your turn to see if you can save yourself. 

Make your choice."

The recorder clicked off, leaving for a moment raw silence. 

Strahm’s sharp eyes narrowed. “Looks like the man lost.”

Carter crouched, gaze tracing the gears of the mechanism. 

The chain drawn tight. The dark crimson of the blood pooled on the inside of the basin. 

“No,” he said flatly. “Nobody could've won this game."

There was caution in his words. Hoffman seemed as interested as Strahm as the younger detective spoke. 

"Meaning?" Strahm’s brow furrowed.

"Well, the device was supposed to stop as soon as he complied. Going by the cuts on the face we know he tried. But he couldn't follow the rules, not from the angle in which he was positioned. It was impossible to prevent his face from getting shredded when the time was up." He explained calmly, pointing towards the victim. 

Hoffman remained still, listening intently to the observations. 

"The device didn't kill him," one of the techs pointed out "He drowned in his own blood well-after the game was over. Cause of death points to asphyxiation." 

There was a pause, a thought passing, there was a glint of curiosity and maybe something deeper than that on his face as Carter interjected. "How did he know how to play?" 

Agent Strahm was taken aback for a moment as if Carter had just asked him the stupidiest question in the world 

"The tape mentioned-"

"No, I mean..." Carter slowly paced around the body, eyes contemplating every inch on display, "Look at his hands, the guy was completely bound, no way he reached for the record player... No, someone played that tape for him. Stayed to watch his work unfold"

"This was no lesson about appreciating life, or any Jigsaw bullshit. This was punishment." His eyes subtly met detective Hoffman's. "This was personal."

Strahm rubbed his face, weary. It was clear that the whole investigation was taking a toll on him. His sigh was halfway between a groan and a curse. 

“Okay. So... a copycat? Someone trying to hand out their own vision of justice in twisted Jigsaw fashion?” 

Hoffman stepped in steering the conversation. “Copycats aren’t new. We’ve had a dozen calls from wannabes since the case broke. Most are hoaxes... this one just decided to go further.” 

His tone was neutral, but Strahm’s gaze lingered on him a moment too long before looking away. The doubt, the suspicion, they were subtle, but they were there; simmering.

The tension broke when another officer rushed in with a report: the facility had been broken into days earlier. The security tapes had been wiped clean. No leads. 

Strahm pinched the bridge of his nose. It was late, too late. He ordered the scene to be wrapped up. The reports on the findings would be reviewed the following morning.

Outside, the rain had not subsided. The drops pattered faintly on the dirt. With Strahm already gone, they neared Hoffman's car. 

Carter’s voice dropped to a whisper, quiet, wolfish, meant for Hoffman alone. “Seems like another player has joined the game.” 

Hoffman didn’t respond. Not aloud. But when his eyes met Carter's both knew exactly what was left unspoken in that silence: This was an opportunity. A mask they could both hide behind.

They needed to find him first.

Chapter 10: Briefing: First Victim

A scatter of crime scene photographs lay across the table, some others pinned on the board. Harsh snapshots of twisted metal, torn flesh, and the scene left behind at the mental facility. Strahm and Perez were already seated, the former clicking his pen with impatient rhythm while Perez’s gaze drifted to the photographs, her brow tight with quiet thought. Hoffman was already seated, a file open in front of him, pen in hand, looking every bit the detached professional.

Carter slipped in quietly, taking the empty chair near the door. Perez's eyes briefly studied him from head to toe, as if trying to find something missing, her brow furrowing ever so slightly. 

Strahm barely acknowledged him before starting. “Victim’s been identified as Father Samuel Lyndson. Sixty-seven. Worked part-time as a counselor at the Westline Mental Facility, specializing in...” he sneered at the word, “...redemption therapy. More precisely, he offered services on redemptive Christian counseling.”

He dropped a photo on the table with a sharp flick. “So far no leads; killer simply vanished, no trail. I don’t buy it. I want names, I want locations, and I want every person who’s had access to that site in the past week torn apart and accounted for. Everything.”

Perez spoke next, her voice steady. “We have nothing solid on his background before he was transferred to Westline, yet. But there are whispers of complaints filed against him years ago. Nothing that ever stuck.”

Carter leaned forward slightly, eyes flicking between the photographs. 

“So he preached redemption, but outside of sermons he might had some secrets buried under the rug… Perhaps that's the message the copycat wanted us to find.”

Strahm shot him a sharp look, the tiredness on his voice barely masked. 

“That’s speculation. What we need is a connection. One victim doesn’t give us a pattern. If this bastard’s using Jigsaw’s blueprint, we’ll find him. Jigsaw never disappeared for long, neither will this freak. We just need to keep looking”

Hoffman exhaled through his nose, “Strahm’s right. We don’t even know if the copycat picked him for religion or convenience.” His voice carried  just the right edge of condescension. “You might be reading too much into it.”

Carter’s jaw tightened, but he kept his tone calm. “Maybe. But all I’m saying is people don’t build traps like this without a reason.” 

“Or he’s just another lunatic with a bible fetish,” Hoffman added, tone deliberately dismissive.

Perez’s tone cut through, calm but firm. “Detective Carter's right. Symbolism this deliberate doesn’t come from nowhere. It may be personal. You don’t escalate like this without history.”

Strahm’s eyes flashed as he paced around the room like a caged animal. “Then find me the history. Find me the goddamn connection. Because until we do, we’ve got nothing.”

Carter leaned forward, tapping one of the reports with the tip of his pen. His voice slid through the tension, “Then you'd want to see this... Maintenance logs from the building. Says it was broken into last week. One of the janitors reported noises in the basement. He didn’t follow up.”

Strahm’s head snapped toward him. “You’re kidding.”

“No,” Carter said smoothly. “Guy’s got priors too: assault, petty theft. If he’s involved, that would explain access. Basement’s remote, tools nearby, no one checking in…” He paused just long enough before adding, “And get this, the guy had a dispute with some members of a local church before he moved here. Something about property rights. Church won.”

Perez’s brow arched. “That’s thin.”

Strahm shook his head, too wired to let it go. “Thin’s better than nothing. Run him. Full background, associates, finances. If he so much as sneezed near that building, I want to know.”

At the table, Hoffman closed his file with deliberate slowness, letting the weight of the silence hang. “Sounds like a stretch to me,” he said flatly, dismissive but not quite challenging. “But if you want to waste time chasing janitors, that’s your call.”

The remark slid off Strahm, who was already barking orders for Perez to run the checks. But Carter caught the brief flicker in Hoffman’s eyes; approval, quick and sharp. A message passed in silence: keep them busy, keep them away.

Chapter 11: Trail

The apartment was dim, the only light coming from the desk lamp casting a sharp cone across the chaos of files and photographs. The precinct had gone quiet hours ago, and Hoffman had slipped out with a bundle of reports hidden under his jacket. Now the files were spread open like an autopsy across the kitchen table.

Hoffman leaned back in his chair, flipping through pages with slow, controlled movements. His patience was fraying. Carter sat opposite him, posture hunched, eyes darting across each page with intent.

“Most of this is useless,” Hoffman muttered. “Pathology. Standard forensics. Nothing that gets us closer to a suspect.”

“Wait.” Carter’s voice was low, almost reverent. His finger froze over a photograph. "Here."

Hoffman leaned over. “Dust particles. Environmental,” he read aloud, unimpressed.

“Not just dust,” Carter murmured, eyes narrowing. His fingertip traced the faint gray film clinging to the edges of the wooden kneeler the victim had been bound to. “Look closer. That’s years of neglect. Abandonment. You don’t get residue like this unless the wood’s been sitting untouched for a long time."

Hoffman studied the picture a little longer, the skepticism lingering in his stare. “You’re guessing.”

“I’m recognizing,” Carter countered. His lips twitched into a faint smile, pride edged with something darker. "Wood like that, you can almost taste the years on it. Forgotten places always leave their mark.”

There was a beat of silence. Hoffman studied him, then gave a small, reluctant nod. “Stolen?” 

Carter nodded once. “Most likely. We could narrow the search to abandoned parishes nearby."

Hoffman’s brow lifted slightly. “Nearby?”

“The witness said he saw someone leaving on foot. No vehicles, no sounds of engines. You don’t haul something like this without someone noticing.” Carter let the words hang, his tone carrying a subtle smugness.

Hoffman rubbed a thumb along the folder’s edge, considering.

“What do we have on the dead guy?” Carter asked.

“Not much besides what we already know,” Hoffman read, his voice even. “Transferred six years ago. No enemies. No family. He lived alone.”

Carter looked up, meeting Hoffman’s eyes. “You don’t transfer priests without a reason. Perez mentioned complaints. Allegations...That would explain motive." 

Hoffman’s lips curved, the faintest shadow of a smile tugging at one corner. Approval, cold and quiet. “Personal vendetta.”

“Exactly. We dig into what Father Lyndson was hiding, we find the connection.” Carter added, voice dropping as he tapped the report with his pen, “His past might leads us to the killer.”

Hoffman closed the folder with deliberate slowness, the sound sharp in the silence. “Then we better move fast before the Feds catch on.”

Carter leaned back, arms folded. “Let them try.”

The lamp hummed in the silence that followed, their shadows long across the table. Two predators chasing the same trail.

Chapter 12: Interrogation

The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead, throwing pale shadows across the small room. 

A metal table sat between the janitor, Raymond Kessler, and Agents Strahm and Perez. Kessler shifted uncomfortably in his chair, thick hands clasped together, grime still under his fingernails from a night shift. His work boots tapped nervously against the floor.

Strahm tossed a file onto the table with a snap. 

“Maintenance logs say you reported noises in the basement of the mental facility a week before the body turned up. Care to explain why you didn’t follow up?”

Kessler blinked, brow furrowed. “I did. I checked. Pipes rattled all the time down there. Place is a dump... I didn’t see anyone.”

Strahm stalked around the room, steps measured with patient composure he didn't have, file in hand. 

Without a word, he slapped the first photo onto the table. The victim kneeling. The glint of a metal basin.

Kessler flinched.

Strahm leaned in, voice low and hard. “Look at this, Mr. Kessler. You see this? This man right here spent at least thirty minutes screaming and chocking on his own blood. You expect me to believe you have no idea how that got into the basement without notice?”

Kessler shook his head quickly. “I told you. I heard noises, checked the pipes. That’s all it was. There was no one there.”

Another photo hit the table, harder this time. The angle of the restraint. The chains. The wounds.

Strahm’s jaw tightened. “Pipes don’t scream, Mr. Kessler. Pipes don’t bleed out all over the floor.”

Perez, calm but sharp, interjected from her seat across the table. 

“Your record isn’t clean Mr. Kessler. Assault, theft. You’ve lost jobs before for fights on site. You’ve been in trouble before. You can understand why that would make you a person of interest.”

Kessler shifted, sweat beading at his temple. 

“Look, I’ve done some stupid things, yeah, but murder? That’s not me. I swear, I got nothing to do with this.”

Strahm slammed another photo down. A close-up of the victim’s face, skin torn, mangled. The sharp crack made Kessler flinch again.

“This wasn’t random. This was personal. You got history with the church. Lost some big money from what I've heard...I don't know you, but I wouldn't take that too well."

Perez leaned forward, quiet steel in her tone. 

"This is your chance to come clean. If you know something - anything - that helps us find whoever did this, it is your time to say it.”

Strahm didn’t wait for her to finish. He dropped the final photo on the table with a sharp smack, this one showing the entire setup in all its grotesque detail. He jabbed a finger against it.

”You had keys. You had access. You had motive. So I think is time you give us a good reason not to arrest you in this exact moment."

Kessler’s breathing grew shallow, his eyes flicking from photo to photo as though they might swallow him whole. 

“Jesus Christ… I-I couldn’t have done that. Look,... I was working at a different site that night. Check my timecard. Better yet, ask my supervisor, he does rounds with me every shift. I'm sure cameras caught me on site the whole night too... I never left.”

Perez took her phone and went out of the room to corroborate. The silence stretched, painfully slow, taut as wire. When she finally returned she only spared a quick glance at Strahm shaking her head.

"Time-stamped footage from the facility’s cameras confirm the story. He was on shift all night. His supervisor also confirms it " Perez states snapping her folder closed. “You’ve got no idea who might’ve been in that building?”

Kessler shook his head. “No clue. I wouldn’t touch that place after dark, not with the stories about it.”

Strahm’s jaw flexed. He stared at Kessler a beat too long, then swept the photos back into the file with a sharp, frustrated motion.

“You walk out of here, but don’t get comfortable,” he growled, voice low. “If I hear even a whisper tying you to this again, I’ll be back in this room with you, and I won’t be this patient.”

Kessler nodded, relief flooding his features as he shuffled out under the watchful eyes of the two agents at the door.

As the door shut, Strahm slammed the folder onto the table with a loud crack that echoed through the room. Perez’s eyes followed him, calm but pointed.

“Scaring the wrong guy won’t get us closer,” she said flatly.

Strahm’s glare burned into the closed door. “Maybe. But somebody is still out there, laughing at us. Making us waste our time."

Perez’s gaze was sharper, though quieter. “Not a waste. Eliminating a suspect is still progress. But this copycat guy...he's covering his trail. He's careful. And that worries me more than a janitor with an attitude.”

Strahm didn’t answer, but his expression was hard as stone. They already had too much work chasing the work of one lunatic, and now it turned out to be two of them.

Chapter 13: Confrontation

The space reeked of damp stone and rot, of mold growing in the cracks of walls that had long ago forgotten warmth. Water dripped from the wooden ceiling above. Someone had turned this room into something that resembled a chapel. Splintered pews leaned sideways. Broken bottles and melted candle stubs across the floor. The walls were stained in black paint, “THE LORD DETESTS LIARS.” “THEIR LIPS SHALL BLEED TRUTH.” Each phrase scrawled like a scream.

And, standing pale as the statues of virgins and saints scattered around the place, there he was. 

The boy looked younger than they had expected. The records put him in his early-twenties, only six years younger than Carter. His body was thin, almost malnourished, his eyes hollowed by sleepless nights of mania. 

He stood behind his makeshift altar, its sides darkened with dust and mold. In his trembling hands, he clutched a length of pipe, jagged at the end as if broken from the wall. It shook not out of strength, but out of fear. Still, he raised it towards the dark pig-faced figures that had breached his sanctuary.

“Get out! You can’t be here. Not now!” he spat, voice cracking, rage and panic mingled in his face. Of course he recognized his unwelcomed guests and their intentions. “Y-you don't understand... I am doing the Lord’s work!” His words echoed too loudly against the damp walls. 

Carter tilted his head, amused, prowling around the edges of the room like a predator nearing its prey.

“Lord’s work, huh?” His mocking resonating deeper, menacing under the layers of the mask. “Looks like the Lord outsourced.”

He took off his mask, Hoffman followed suit.

The boy’s fury only deepened at the words. “You don’t understand! I just- just need more time... the work needs to be finished” he shouted, the piece of metal quivering in his grip. “The priests, the teachers, the liars. They told us God would save us... They preached about purity while they broke us, scarred us! My sister..." His voice cracked, tears springing in his bloodshot eyes. “My sister... I begged for help!” There was venom in his voice, hatred imprinted in each syllable "They all told us to keep silent...But now I am the one who will impart silence upon them."

The revelation hung thick in the air. For the briefest second, Carter’s smirk faltered. His eyes darkened, something grim stirring deep inside him. An old shadow brushing against the present. It was gone as quick as it had surfaced. 

“So what now? You believe you're God’s little avenger?” His voice razor-sharp, as if he could strip away whatever was left of the boy's courage with words alone. “You talk about lies but you’re no more than a farce. An impostor who takes credit for someone else's work.”

Hoffman stepped closer, silently, his form casting a shadow that seemed to swallow every ounce of light in the candle-lit room. He spoke flatly, with disdain. “You think Jigsaw would’ve approved of this?” His voice was cold. “You’re an insult to his work.” 

The boy’s face twisted in rage. “Jigsaw is a coward. He lets sinners live! I don't take mercy on their twisted souls. I’m better than him. My traps don’t forgive, they judge. I punish them for their transgressions and then they die. That is justice!” 

Carter laughed. The sound cruel, unforgiving. He circled the altar, Hoffman approaching from the opposite side. 

“You’ve got fire, I’ll give you that,” he murmured. “But fire without control burns itself out" His eyes never leaving the young man’s face. "When I look at you I don't see a prophet nor a savior... you want to know what I see?" 

He stopped in front of him, leaning close enough that their breaths mingled. 

"All I see is a boy still crying because his priest taught him more about sin with actions than with words... A coward, hiding behind God’s name because you were too weak to face the men who ruined you." 

The words hung in the air like poisonous smoke.

Even in that fleeting moment, there was a subtle weight behind Carter's words. Something twisted beyond recognition. Rotten. Dangerous. 

The boy's face was paler than the glint of the moon shining through the broken windows. 

The silence was short lived. 

“Tell me, did it make you feel better? Watching that poor bastard choke on his own blood? Showing him what you had become because of them?”

The boy shook, hands trembling, the pipe wavering between them. Still, even overweighted by fear, a fraction of something resembling peace passed across his features. 

“It made me feel... alive,” he hissed softly, tears welling up in his eyes, spilling. 

The boy reacted then, he swung his makeshift weapon in Hoffman's direction, aiming for his head. 

A muted thud was heard as the pipe collided against the broader man's arm instead. 

Big mistake. 

Carter was on him in a heartbeat, slamming him against the cold concrete wall. The pipe falling to the ground with a loud clattering sound. 

Carter's hands wrapped around the boy’s throat, squeezing, tightening. And though his expression remained blank, a part of him savored the panic in the boy's eyes. 

“Pathetic,” Carter whispered, low enough so only the boy could hear. 

And for a heartbeat, Carter wasn’t sure he was speaking to him. 

Under the yellow lights of the candles, the moment felt almost ritualistic. 

His grip tightened, testing, enjoying the thrash of resistance. There was something in his stare, perhaps a faint glimmer of himself reflected in that trembling boy, twisted by hurt and too much rage. 

The young man still resisted, tried to fight back, uselessly. Carter's grip only loosened for a fraction so he could take a firm hold of the boy's hair instead. 

He slammed his face hard against the damp wall. Once. Twice. The boy stilled for a moment. 

Carter's movements were rough, yet calculated, and the darkness behind Hoffman's eyes reflected everything but disapproval.

The boy was turned around, dragged towards the altar. A hard kick to the back of his leg, forced him into a kneeling position. The needle on Hoffman's hand found its way to the boy's neck. The copycat's last remains of strength disappearing as he faded into unconsciousness. 

No words were exchanged between them. The two predators had finally managed to catch their prey. Their eyes met for a second, an unspoken agreement: this was business, just tying up loose ends. 

But deep down, behind their made up excuses, they both knew it. 
They had carved this moment just for the both of them.

On the floor at the altar's feet, the copycat's half-finished work laid scattered. Some reconnaissance pictures, lists of names. There were a few designs for other traps; sketches of crowns, masks, cages. They were crude, not even close to what they aspired to be. 

Carter bent down, gathering them with careful fingers, flipping through them with quiet interest. 
“These,” he murmured, tapping one of the sketches. “These could be useful.” Hoffman gave him a sharp and skeptic look.

Carter smiled. “Think about it. We leave a trail of his work. The Bureau chases him, chases this. It can buy us time while we get the big game set on motion.” 

Hoffman’s gaze lingered on him, contemplating the possibility. Slowly, he nodded. “Fine. We use it. We keep them busy.” 

 

 

Chapter 14: Reckoning

Notes:

◘ T/W = I'll say this again, just in case = BLOOD - that's it. Proceed :)

They drove back to an abandoned house at the outskirts of the city. A place Carter knew was remote enough not to drive any unwanted attention as they finished their businesses. The place reeked of mildew and dust, its windows boarded and cracked, letting in only slivers of the night. 

In the confined space of the basement, the stage had been set for the copycat's last play. A steel structure shapped in a similar fashion as a crucifix held the boy's limp body upright, wrists and ankles securely bound in leather straps. His limbs framed in a suit-like razor wire cage. 

For some long minutes, the room was still. Both men admiring the work they had put together. The metal glinted in the yellowish light of the basement. It gave the scene an almost sacred aura.

Then, the spell was broken. 
Then, came the screams. 

The copycat’s struggles grew frantic as he realized the situation he was into. He kicked, flailed, screamed. 

A timer began its relentless countdown. 
The trap’s mechanism clicked and whirred. 

The wires tightening against skin. Slow yet unrelenting. Sharp metal cutting and tearing through flesh in its wake. Steady streams of deep red trickling down, ticking as they splattered on the cold concrete floor. 

There was no tape. 
No instructions. 
No lesson to learn.

This was not a test. 

Carter and Hoffman stepped back, their eyes following their victim as he began to realize the futility, the impossibility, of escape. 

Hoffman’s lips twitched upward, a faint acknowledgment of the grim pleasure coursing through them both. Carter’s eyes met his, the spark of recognition immediate: this wasn't about Jigsaw's philosophy, nor about Kramer's teachings. It was not even about revenge or retaliation. No. It was about the pure, unfiltered satisfaction of witnessing helplessness. Of the power and control that came with it. 

One moment there were weak pleas, a few curses, a short lived scream. 
The other, a chocked gurgle, blood bubbling up past the young man's lips... silence. 

His body convulsed for a minute, then sagged. The life drained from his body, leaving only a hollow shell to match the emptiness he had carried within. 

There was silence now, except for the steady drip of blood pattering onto the concrete. 

Carter released the locks on the mechanism, breathing heavy, adrenaline still high.

“Guess God didn't come to save him after all.” 

Hoffman took a step closer to the maimed figure laying on the pool of red, face unmoving.

“God had nothing to do with this. This...this was all us.”

 

---

 

The room quickly became heavy with the copper tang of fresh blood. The boy’s body lay sprawled across the concrete floor where he had fallen when the locks had released him. Carter crouched beside the corpse, staring with unnerving calm, his head tilted as though studying the now featureless body. The boy’s mouth remained half-open, a silent scream. 

For a brief instant, Carter wondered what it would’ve been like if this young man had learnt to grow into his rage and hatred instead of drowning in it. He just smirked to himself, shaking the thought away. 

He leaned down, running a gloved hand along the freshly torn flesh. His hands flexed once, twice, then he reached for the tools. 

“You don’t have to…” Hoffman began, but Carter cut him off with a look, sharp, final. The kind of look that said he wasn’t asking for his permission. 

“No body, no case,” Carter said simply, his voice steady. “Nothing can remain.” 

Hoffman stayed at the back, gave him space to work, hiding the flicker of something dangerous that curled in his gut at the intensity of the words. Interest. Maybe something even worse than that.

Carter dragged the corpse onto the plastic sheeting with ease. “It won't take long,” he said softly, almost conversationally, as if discussing the weather instead of the gruesome act about to unfold. 

Hoffman kept his eyes on him, leaning against the doorframe, the light tracing sharp shadows across his face. He didn’t move to help, not yet. There was a deep seated curiosity that kept him in place. 

The steel gleamed slick in the half-light, a hungry thing. He pressed it against the flesh just under the jawline and cut deep. A wet sound broke the silence, followed by a warm spray that stained his sleeves. 

Carter didn’t flinch. Instead, he looked at ease, mesmerized, as if studying the way the blood pumped in slowing bursts; as if the rhythm whispered something only he could hear. 

Most men would recoil at the stench, at the arterial spatter slicking the concrete. Carter leaned in, steady, precise. Almost gentle.

“You’ve done this before,” Hoffman observed, voice level, neutral, yet there was an underlying weight of knowing. 

There was no reply. At least for a moment. Just the rhythmic scrape of blade against bone, the dull thud of dismembered limbs arranged neatly on plastic containers. 

Hoffman’s gaze lingered on Carter’s face in the low light. For a fraction of a second, he could've sworn something flickered there, not thought, but memory. The next second it was gone. 

Carter finally glanced up, soft smile on his lips, a mask that did little to shield the cruel emptiness behind it. “Curiosity killed the cat, detective.” His tone was dismissive, a warning dressed as a joke, but with an edge Hoffman felt rather than heard. 

Hoffman’s eyes darkened, his mind tracing the implications, the blurred possibilities of what else he might hide. And yet, he couldn’t deny the thrill, the pull, the dangerous excitement of it. 

He didn't push, he filed it away in silence. Later, he told himself.

Hoffman stepped closer, closer than necessary, drawn by the quiet magnetism of the scene.

He found himself studying the lines of Carter’s jaw, the slight tilt of his head as he concentrated, the measured strength in his shoulders. He had always believed himself immune to… fascination, to anyone’s presence commanding him without words. Yet here, with Carter, there was a pull he could not ignore, a subtle challenge threaded in every movement. 

Hoffman’s lips twitched into something close to a smile. Too close. 

He knew the feeling was mutual. Carter’s glances, fleeting but deliberate, carried the quiet dare of someone fully aware of their own power and the tension simmering between them.

His hand brushed lightly against Carter’s arm as he handed over a container. 

"You're thorough.” almost a whisper, something that had slipped past his lips. 

Carter looked up, eyebrow arched, lips curling faintly. “I like to make sure nothing’s left to chance,” he replied, calm yet with that usual smugness that made Hoffman's annoyance grow.

The contact lingered longer than needed, a spark in the stale air between them.

The sounds filling the room were wet, obscene. Bones cracking under the pressure of a saw, each break punctuated by a sharp snap. Blood slicked across Carter’s forearms, staining his shirt. 

There was a disturbingly contradictory beauty to the scene. 

The floor grew slick with blood. The stench of it thickened until most men would have gagged. Hoffman just breathed it in, unwilling to admit to himself that something about Carter’s handling of death, made his pulse quicken, stirring a dangerous hunger inside him.

The older detective stepped closer, aware of the heat in the confined space, of the subtle brush of air that seemed to stretch between them. 

For a moment, he thought about what it would be like if the roles were reversed. His mind drifting back to their own confrontations, how neither had wanted to give the other the satisfaction of winning. 

Weaponized words. Hands turning into fists. Both ending up panting, bruises covered up under layers of clothing.

He thought of the movement of Carter's hands. The ruthless and merciless way that he could dispense violence. And suddenly, for the briefest moment, he wasn't staring down at the way Carter took apart that poor stupid boy anymore. Suddenly, it was him who he saw laying on that dirty basement floor. Split open and bleeding.

He had always wanted control, to assert dominance. With Carter... things were not so simple anymore. 

Hoffman swallowed hard. Tried to shake the image off his head. 

Still. he found himself imagining the possibilities. The violence, the challenge, the raw excitement in the face of the danger of a moment where neither of them would back down. 

A thrill ran through him, hot and sharp, and he tightened his fists briefly, aware of the way his body reacted despite his attempts to keep composure. 

Carter’s hands moved over the remaining parts with skillful dexterity. Blood sheeted down the gloves, dripping onto the cracked floor in steady taps. A crimson wet line smeared across his cheek where he’d absently brushed sweat from his face. 

By the time Carter was finished, the body no longer looked like a man. It had become only a collection of pieces, severed and stripped of any traces of humanity. He took off his gloves, his shirt sticking to him with sweat and blood. 

Together they worked quietly after that, cleaning tools, getting rid of their stained clothes, feeding the remains to the barrel of acid. Movements synchronized. 

When the last of the body was submerged and the vat sealed, Carter exhaled, wiping his hands with deliberate care, rolling his shoulders. His eyes flicked to Hoffman, searching, even if neither knew exactly for what. 

There was a flash of something unspoken, something neither of them dared to name. A recognition of the thrill in their shared violence, a hunger that only left them craving more. 

They finally left the house in silence, the night air cool against their skin. 

There was no need for words afterwards. There never was. 

 

---

 

The low rumble of the car filled the night as they drove through the outskirts, headlights slicing through the darkness. 

Carter leaned back against the seat, arms crossed loosely, watching shadows flicker. Hoffman’s hands gripped the wheel with that familiar, controlled precision, eyes occasionally glancing at Carter, noting the faint traces of an expression he couldn’t quite read.

"You handled tonight well,” Hoffman said finally, voice even, casual. “Better than I expected." 

Carter’s smirk was subtle, almost imperceptible. He didn't turn to look at him. “You thought I’d hesitate?” His tone mocking. 

“Wasn't sure what to expect. But I can tell you enjoyed it... Maybe more than you should,” Hoffman said quietly. Not an accusation, almost a warning, almost a tease, aware that the line they were skirting was dangerous in more ways than one. 

Carter tilted his head, meeting Hoffman’s gaze, eyes glinting with the kind of honesty that was more dangerous than lies. “And didn't you, detective?” He said softly, leaning slightly toward the driver’s side, his tone half amusement, half challenge. 

The tension in the confined space of the car thickened, subtle yet charged, as if the air itself was holding its breath. 

Hoffman’s mind raced with that dangerous thrill of being beside someone who could challenge him so openly, so completely. Someone who could make the rules shift under his fingers. It enraged and compelled him all the same.

Carter, for his part, reveled in the subtle chaos he caused. He could see it in Hoffman’s posture, the slight catch in his breath, the way his eyes tracked Carter’s every movement as if trying to figure him out. As if waiting for him to slip so he could take the upper hand.

But even from behind their masks, deep down, they both knew what the other was trying to conceal.

 

 

Notes:

◘ I remember I envisioned that trap as something similar to a 'springlock suit' but in which instead of springlocks there is razor wire tightening all over your body...

Chapter 15: Apartment

By the time they pulled up outside Carter’s building, both were quiet, but their bodies were still thrumming with adrenaline. 

Carter unfastened his seatbelt slowly. “You can come up for a drink,” he said casually, though the suggestion carried a subtle weight. “We can go over the plans. Set a clear layout to work with.” 

Hoffman hesitated only a fraction of a second. It was late and had been a long night. Still he nodded, following Carter inside. 

The apartment was dimly lit, sparse, but the atmosphere was inviting in a way that made it look lived in. The orange lights from the street slipped shyly through the blinds, soft, casting a strange yet welcome sense of warmth. The door closed with a muted thud behind them. 

"You look tense, Detective". Hoffman truly hated the way that word rolled out of his mouth, like a constant mock. It always managed to get under his skin. 

Carter retrieved two glasses, filling them with a dark, potent spirit that smelled faintly of smoke and spice. “Whiskey?”. Hoffman only nodded. 

They clinked glasses before taking a sip. 

The liquid burned, and Carter’s eyes flicked to Hoffman, noticing the almost imperceptible grimace. “Strong enough?” Carter teased. 

Hoffman’s gaze sharpened, but there was no real heat behind it. “I can handle it,” he said, a slight edge of challenge and amusement in his tone.

They sat opposite each other at the table, shadows sharpening the angles of their faces, the weight of what they had done hanging heavy still. 

They moved one to the details of their new game: notes spreads on the small kitchen table, talk of next steps, of controlled moves and contingencies. 

"Right now, our main problem is the Bureau. Strahm especially. He's downright obsessed with this case, and he does not coat in subtlety that he suspects you being part of it" He tilted his glass lazily, eyes glinting in the light. "We just need to give him something to chew on in the meantime. Buy us some time." 

They would leave hints, a trail enough to confuse but not enough to incriminate. And if they got close, it would already be too late, the real copycat was already vanished from existence. 

Every movement was calculated, every deception precise.

Hoffman leaned back, arms folded. "Good enough." His lip curving slightly at the edge, something close to a smile. 

 

The whiskey burned hotter the more they drank, though neither seemed interested in softening its edge with water or ice. Hoffman leaned back in the chair, his shirt sleeves rolled up. 

The burn of the spirit loosened the edges of caution; words slid easier, and the room seemed smaller. The smell of chemicals and blood still clung faintly to their skin. And somewhere in between strategy and mockery, the conversation deepened, darkened. 

"You know... you never answered my question, Detective" Carter watched Hoffman over the rim of his almost empty glass. The look is almost clinical, but there was something more behind it, something in the way he seemed to savor how Hoffman tenses when he’s being watched. "Did you enjoy it?  Watching that poor boy die?..." 

The expression on Hoffman's face was stoic. But the younger man knew better, he knew exactly what buttons to push. "What was the part you liked the most?... Was it when you saw its limp form turned into a bloody mass of torn meat on the floor?" 

Carter’s gaze lingered as he set his glass down, voice dropping, teasing. He could almost hear the way Hoffman's breath shifted subtly. Wondered how it would feel the quickening of his pulse beneath his hand. 

"Did you enjoy the wet sounds of his flesh tearing as I took him apart, piece by piece?... Or maybe even before that... when you could see the helplessness and fear in his eyes as it struggled to breath under my hands, knowing he had nowhere to go, knowing I could've snapped his neck at that very second had I wanted to." 

Hoffman’s lips twitched, a shadow of a smile, “You should be more careful asking so many questions,” Hoffman murmured, “Like you said... curiosity can be a dangerous thing.” 

Carter smiled, slow. He stood, steps measured. One hand placed on the back of the chair. He leaned in, close enough that Hoffman could count the faint freckles at the corner of his eyes. Words dripping like poisoned honey. “I like dangerous,” he said, teasing, daring. 

“You’ve thought about it, haven't you?,” Carter whispered, venomous. “How it would feel if it were my hands on you instead." 

That did it. 

“You don’t know when to shut the fuck up.” Hoffman's voice came harsh through clenched teeth, dangerous. But the warning lacked real weight. 

Carter only tilted his head, amused. “Hit a nerve?” 

Hoffman’s fists tightened. There was an undeniable darkness in his eyes, not anger but something he wasn't willing to name. 

“I could end you here. Right now.” the sentence more a snarl than words as he pinned the younger man with a stare. Pupils blown wide.  

Carter only laughed, dark, breathless. “Then do it.” 

The room thickened, air heavy. Neither man moved.

“That's what I thought" Carter murmured, his voice low, calm, as if he could see what truly was hidden behind Hoffman's intentions. 

"I think you tend to forget yourself sometimes, Detective” His gaze was steady, unreadable. “Threatening me. Acting like you’re the one in control.” 

Hoffman gave a short humorless laugh at that. “And you’re saying you are?”

Instead of answering, Carter reached, swift, harsh, and took Hoffman’s wrist. Pressed Hoffman’s hand flat against his chest, over his sternum, hard enough that the steady beat of his heart was undeniable. 

“You feel that?” Carter asked softly, his expression empty of any identifiable emotion. “That doesn’t race for you. Not when you pull a knife, not when you shove a gun in my face." 

There was something raw and twisted behind every word. A hidden blade. "I've already played this game and won. I’ve been staring at death longer than you might think.” 

The atmosphere turned razor-thin. Hoffman’s jaw tightened, his hand flexing instinctively beneath Carter’s grip, but Carter only pressed it firmer against his chest, pinning him in place. 

“If chose to believe I'm the one playing with fire here, go ahead...” Carter continued, his voice rougher. “...but don't forget, for one second, I can burn you too.”

For a heartbeat Hoffman thought about shoving him off, asserting himself, but the intensity in Carter’s eyes kept him unmoved. He wasn’t bluffing. He wanted Hoffman to know that. 

The grip already loosened. Hoffman’s pulse had quickened despite himself. The challenge, the danger, a need craving to be unleashed. 

The memories of what they had done that night. The blood, the screams, the adrenaline of it, they were still too fresh in their minds. 

“You think you can break me?” he muttered, his voice gravel-thick, eyes ablaze with challenge. 

Carter tilted his head, watching him like a puzzle he already knew the answer to. 

“No,” he corrected softly. “I know I can." the words slithering like silk from his lips "Because I know... you'd let me. You simply cannot help yourself.”

Hoffman’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. Fists clenching once at his sides. He flexed his fingers, but whether he wanted to punch or hold, he didn't knew.

The silence between them had grown oppressive, thick with something Hoffman hated admitting even to himself: want. 

He shifted again, as if movement alone could shake it off. 

Then Carter moved. In a swift motion, he caught the back of Hoffman's hair on one hand, keeping him in place, the other curling possessively around the broader man's jaw with surprising force.

Hoffman instinctively tensed but, against his better reasoning, he didn't push away. 

Carter’s thumb dragged slow across Hoffman’s cheek, then down to his mouth. 

“Interesting... how you’re still trying to figure out if you want to hit me...” he murmured, his tone taunting, a finger tracing idly the bottom lip “...or if you’d rather do something else with that mouth instead.” 

Hoffman’s breath hitched despite himself. His smirk faltered into something rawer, but he held Carter’s gaze like he’d rather die than look away. 

“Maybe both,” he muttered, voice gravel-thick. 

The tension snapped.

Their mouths came together, violent. No hesitation. Teeth clashing more than kissing. Hands gripping, bruising. It was everything but tender. 

Hoffman growled low in his throat, one hand fisting in Carter’s shirt and dragging him down harder. It wasn’t surrender; it was defiance. 

Carter only met it with equal force, one hand sliding down to Hoffman’s shoulder, gripping with bruising strength to hold him in place. 

They close the distance between them without either admitting that that’s what they meant to do. 

Hoffman’s breath came harder, his earlier anger colliding with something darker, hotter. He slammed Carter back against the wall, forearm pinning his throat. 

The younger man only laughed, a low guttural and broken sound that rattled between them. 

Hoffman shoved harder, grinding Carter into the wall, but Carter only pulled him closer, hands fisting in his shirt like he was daring him to break something. 

It wasn’t about tenderness; it was about power. The razor-thin line they kept on walking between lust and violence. Neither willing to retreat, neither willing to admit what else they were circling around. 

The whiskey still lingered between them, burning at the back of their throats, mixing with the taste of copper from a split lip. Neither of them cared. 

The kiss deepened, messy and hungry. Temptation laid heavy, blurred further by the adrenaline and liquor running through their bodies. 

Carter shoved Hoffman against the counter. Rough, careless, condescendingly.

Fingers dug in, breaths clashed. A hand roaming too close to flesh, whispers, the undeniable heat of bodies too close. 

The line they were trying so desperately to keep gone. And though nothing was said, no words spoken, something more lingered there. A dangerous and reckless indulgence neither of them could take back.

 

Chapter 16: Hangover

The blinds were drawn halfway, letting in a dull gray light that painted the room in grim shadows. Hoffman stirred awake on the couch, his jacket laid sprawled on the floor. His mouth was dry, his head still pounding and heavy, the taste of last night lingered at the back of his throat. 

His temples throbbed with the slow, merciless rhythm of his pulse, as he sat slowly. But it wasn’t the hangover that gnawed at him as his thoughts cleared. 

The previous night came back in fragments: blood, laughter, the taste of whiskey. The distinct heat of a moment where both had slipped, barriers shattered. 

Carter’s mouth slamming into his, teeth clashing, bruising. The shove of a body. A laugh, low and dark, spilling against his lips. The sharp thud of his back against the wall. 

Hoffman squeezed his eyes shut, but it only made it worse. The images sharpened. 

Carter’s hand tight on his throat. The drag of teeth against his skin. The sting of nails digging until they drew blood. 

“You now feel you're in control, don't you?”

Hoffman shuddered, breath sharp, his hands curling into fists at his sides. 

The worst part wasn’t the words themselves. It was the pulse of *want* that rose inside him as he remembered.

He remembered *rage* flooding him, his fist catching Carter on the stomach. 
Remembered slamming him against the floor, one hand around his throat. 
He remembered the satisfaction, the power. Intoxicating. 

Yet, Carter had leaned forward, even as he choked, and laughed in his face. 

"Go on. Pretend. I’ll let you believe it"

And Hoffman had felt it, the truth bleeding out between them. 
Even with his hands locked on Carter’s throat, it was him who was pulling at the strings. 

His hand clenched so hard that his nails bit into his palm. 
The shame wasn’t in the memory. It was in what it *did* to him. 

Another piece. Another blur of movement. 
Carter pinning him down on the table, an almost empty whiskey bottle and half-finished glasses scattering, shattering. 

Hoffman remembered the weight, the brute force of it. But more than that, he remembered Carter’s face close to his, smiling like a wolf with its teeth sunk deep.

“You’d love it if I killed you, wouldn’t you?
You’d love to know what it feels like to lose.”

His heart stuttered violently in his chest.

The memories tangled, blurred. 

 Heat and violence tangled until there was no telling where one ended and the other began. 

And in the middle of the chaos, Carter’s voice, twisted and curling through his brain like smoke. 

Whispered, taunting, poisonous. “Beg. I want to hear it.” 

And through it all, Hoffman’s own voice, unrecognizable, guttural, snarling things he couldn’t remember choosing to say. 

He remembered the taste of blood, on his lips, in his mouth. He didn’t know whose it had been.
Maybe his. Maybe Carter’s. Maybe both.

Hoffman’s breath came ragged now. His pulse was a war drum in his ears. 
And worst of all, his body remembered. The ache, the heat, the hunger. 

He didn’t know who had started what, who had pushed, who had yielded. 
He only knew the taste of blood on his tongue, the hot breath against his neck. 

Carter’s laughter as he tore the control from his grasp.

And the realization that he had wanted every second of it. 

A sound cut the air. The scrape of a chair. Hoffman lifted his head.

Carter moved easily through the wreckage of the night before, as if chaos bowed to him. His bare feet soundless against the floorboards. Smoke curled from the cigarette burning between his fingers. He wore a simple thin shirt that did little to disguised the marks along his body; some faded, some not. 

Their eyes locked, and in that brief silence, Hoffman knew Carter hadn’t forgotten the previous night events. The way it cut through the room like a blade. His expression softened for a moment, almost human. Then it was gone. 

Hoffman opened his mouth to bring it up, to clear the air, but Carter made the first move. He rose from the chair and walked toward him, slow, deliberate. 

The room seemed to shrink with each step. He stopped just close enough that Hoffman could smell the faint mix of smoke and whiskey still clinging to him. 

“You enjoyed it,” Carter murmured, almost a purr, his lips ghosting close to Hoffman’s ear before he leaned back. “Don’t you dare pretend otherwise." His tone darkened, “But remember this: I decide when we cross that line. Not you.” 

The words weren’t shouted. They didn’t need to be. They carried more weight than any threat Hoffman had heard. They slid straight into him like a blade, leaving no room for denial.

And then, just as quickly, Carter stepped back, as if nothing had happened. 
He stubbed out his cigarette, grabbed his coat, and tossed Hoffman’s jacket onto the couch.

“Get ready. We’ve got work.”

For a moment Hoffman sat frozen, heart pounding harder than he wanted to admit. His skin still burned where Carter’s breath had grazed him. His mind still clawed back to fragments of memory. Undeniable. 

He wanted to tell himself it was the alcohol, the heat of the moment, the lack of inhibitions, but his body betrayed him. The heat simmering in his veins, hunger clawing at him low and deep.

Carter hadn’t kissed him again. Hadn’t laid a hand on him. 
But somehow, Hoffman felt branded all the same.

And yet, the worst part wasn’t that he had lost control. Or that he had let Carter take it from him.
The worst part was that he wanted to lose it again.

Chapter 17: Hunger

The door clicked shut behind Carter.

Silence rushed in to fill the space, thick and suffocating. Hoffman sat there for a long moment, coffee cooling untouched in his hand, his pulse still hammering like he’d gone twelve rounds in a fight. The wreckage of the night lay all around him, but it was nothing compared to the wreckage inside his head.

He had always prided himself on control. He was the one who dictated the rules, who set the pace, who decided when someone broke and when they didn’t. Still, last night, somewhere between the whiskey and the violence, between blood and threats...he had lost it.  

Not because he’d slipped. Because Carter had taken it from him.
And he had let him.

He tipped back in his chair, closing his eyes as fragments of memory refused to stay burried. The weight of Carter pressing him down. That mocking whisper at his ear. Those hands, steady and unyielding, turning rage into something else entirely.

"You’d love it if I killed you, wouldn’t you?...
...You’d love to know what it feels like to lose"

The words rang in his skull, half a threat, half a promise. 

He ground his teeth. He wanted to believe he’d regain control next time. That he’d flip Carter, tear the smugness out of him, make him bleed, make him beg. He replayed it in his head like a twisted fantasy: his hands on Carter’s throat, Carter breaking, finally yielding.

But the image never held. Carter would remain there, blood-stained and triumphant, as if even in defeat he’d still won.

And the sickest part? Hoffman could feel the shameful heat pooling inside him at the thought, dragging him deeper. An insatiable craving. Like Carter had planted something under his skin that was growing, festering.

Hoffman dragged a hand down his face, rough and shaking. He hated this. But hate didn’t make the feeling go away. If anything it only made it worse.

Hoffman pushed up from the chair, pacing the room like a caged animal. He told himself he was planning: running through ways to steer the Bureau off the scent, how to keep Rigg occupied until the real game began. 

And as the pounding in his head eased, the rationalizations slithered in, oily, persuasive. He needed Carter close for this. Carter was sharp, fearless, quick to act. A perfect partner to deflect suspicion from him, a shield against Strahm’s growing interest. 

Useful. 
A tool, nothing more.
That was the lie Hoffman clung to.

Still, somewhere deep down, he already knew the truth.

This was not about strategy. This was all about making sure the fire that had been lit under his skin stayed within reach, so he could lose himself in it when the hunger got too loud.

 This wasn’t over. It'd never be. 
 Not until one of them broke for good.

And God help him, he wasn’t sure which of them he wanted it to be.

 

---

 

Carter leaned against the cool brick wall outside. He lit another cigarette, balanced it between his fingers, letting the smoke curl lazily into the damp morning air. The city hadn’t quite woken yet; the streets still had that grey hush of dawn. Peaceful.

He dragged on the cigarette, eyes half-lidded, replaying the night in his head. The blood. The drinks. Hoffman.

Carter smirked around the filter, tongue flicking against his teeth as he thought about it. The great Detective Mark Hoffman. Composed, cold, decent. Everyone either feared him or respected him. But Carter had seen through his mask from the start. The hints were faint at first. A flare of irritation when Carter pressed a little too close. A slip of his composure at Carter's whispered taunts.

Piece by piece, Carter had taken from him.
And last night, finally, the armour had broken.

He remembered it in flashes. Hoffman’s body twisting under him, the raw edge in his growl when Carter pushed harder. That moment where Hoffman had tried to wrest back control, only to realize that even pinning Carter down, he was not the one calling the shots. The look in his eyes when Carter had whispered about killing him, the shudder that betrayed how much he had wanted for him to try.

Carter exhaled smoke through his nose, slow, thoughtful. That was the part he savored most, that hunger Hoffman couldn’t hide. Because hunger... hunger made a man obedient.

And Carter craved stripping him of every last shred of control. Not in their work. There they functioned as equals under Jigsaw’s legacy, bound by a respect neither of them said out loud. But outside of that? In the quiet, violent intimacy they had carved between them? Carter wanted Hoffman beneath him. Wanted to own him in a way no one else ever could.

The thought of it stirred something sharp in his chest. He tapped ash off the cigarette, a low laugh rumbling in his throat. Hoffman would fight, of course. He’d bare his teeth, tug at the leash, convince himself he was still the one in control. That was what made it so intoxicating. Because Hoffman wasn’t built to obey, he couldn't bear the thought. So when he did, when Carter forced it out of him, it was worth ten men breaking.

That was the game. Their game.
And Carter had no intention of stopping.

He tilted his head back, eyes closing as the smoke burned down to the filter. He thought about Hoffman waking up in the midst of the chaos they had left behind. Remembering the weight of whispered words in his ears. The warm pressure of hands tightening around his neck. Yes, Hoffman would be seething right now, hating the way he longed for more. 

That was good. That was exactly how Carter wanted him. Desperate, circling back again and again no matter how much he resisted.

Sooner or later, Hoffman would realize the truth.
This wasn’t about rivalry. 
This was about possession.

And Carter had already begun to own him.

Chapter 18: Leads

The next morning, the task force gathered in the briefing room. Maps, photographs, and evidence sheets covered the walls. They managed to get to work on time, even if barely, despite their predicament. Hoffman entered first, Carter just behind him. The younger detective’s tie still a bit loose as though he hadn’t bothered to finish dressing properly. 

Strahm prowled in front of them, reports clutched in one hand. He flicked pages with visible irritation. Perez stood off to the side, scanning the latest forensics printouts. 

"Let’s go over this again,” Strahm said, voice clipped. He pointed at the crime scene photos. “Residue on the victim’s clothing. Lab called it environmental. I don’t care. I want everything re-examined. No dismissals. No assumptions.” 

Perez raised a brow. “Environmental contamination happens all the time, Strahm.” 

"She's right. It could be only background noise, and we would only be wasting our resources and time.” Hoffman interjected, voice calm and rehearsed. 

Strahm let out an annoyed sigh as he cut him off. “Or it could be our only lead. Run everything again. Every scrap, every smear, every speck. I want breakdowns and cross-references. If it looks irrelevant, I want it on my desk twice." 

He slapped the folder shut and tossed it onto the table. “We’re missing something.” 

His gaze moved to the projected shot of the kneeler. “And that? That’s not a random piece of furniture someone just happens to have laying around..." 

Carter sat with his arms folded on the desk, one hand flipping casually some pictures before him. "There are quiet a few churches around the area, maybe we can start by looking if there had been reports of break-ins in the past week" 

"No... This thing looks way too old. We need to narrow the search... Start with the ones abandoned in the last five years. Make sure to check the ones at a walking distance from the scene. Something might turn up." 

The meeting wound down in clipped exchanges. Strahm gathered the files, Perez collected hers too. And beneath the stillness as the room emptied, both the detective's minds traced the same path: 

The FBI was catching up, inch by inch. Too slow to stop them. But close enough that one mistake could turn suspicion into certainty.

Chapter 19: Preparations

The building he’d chosen was another ruin, a forgotten chapel attached to a crumbling parish school. It smelled of mildew and rot, paint peeling from the walls, stained glass shattered and scattered like jewels across the floor. Carter hauled the duffel in. Tools clinked inside, the sound almost reverent in the empty nave.

The centerpiece was already waiting: an old stone baptismal font, cracked but solid. He’d reinforced the inside with steel lining. His hands worked steadily, tightening screws until the steel groaned. Each sound echoed in the vast emptiness, rhythmic, like a hammer striking a bell in some dark liturgy. Chains rattled as he fastened them to the base of the font. Restraints, heavy and cold.The victim wouldn’t be able to stand, wouldn’t be able to breathe…unless he played along. 

Carter didn’t rush. He never rushed. Every movement was precise, almost reverent.

When the chains clinked under his grip, his lips curved into something almost like a smile. He pictured the man’s terror, the frantic struggle, the way blood would cloud the water until the victim’s reflection vanished. The idea made his pulse thrum, a heat crawling under his skin.

His thoughts drifted as his hands kept busy.
He thought of John. His lessons about gratitude, survival, rebirth.

You’ve come far, John had said. Your survival means you’ve learned that life is worth living.

Carter remembered biting back a laugh at that. 

He leaned on the font, staring into the water. His reflection rippled, fractured by the broken glass pieces. His jaw clenched. For a moment he almost saw his younger self staring back. And for a moment, it wasn’t the victim’s face he imagined being pressed into the shards; it was his own.

Carter’s fingers curled tight around the stone rim. He forced the thought back down, shoved it into the same pit where he’d buried the rest. He wasn’t that boy anymore

His mind focused back on the task before him. This was no redemption. This lesson was about reckoning. About making liars and cowards bleed for what they had buried.

“Pain is a good teacher... but death is a good example” he thought.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead as he stepped back. He crouched, resting his forearms against his knees, staring at the mechanism he had brought into being. 

His gaze slid to the notebook lying on one of the pews. The stolen list of names. Carter flipped it open. Former priests, community figures. Cowards. Hypocrites. Liars. They had let rot fester in their midst and turned their faces away.

His work was done.

On his way out, he paused by the altar, eyes trailing the cracked crucifix still hanging in ruins above it. Dust coating the figure’s outstretched arms. Carter let out a bitter, humorless chuckle.

“Where were you when it mattered?” he muttered to the emptiness.
The door slammed shut behind him. 

The trap was ready. The stage was set.
It was time for the player to enter the scene.

 

Chapter 20: Blood Baptism

He came to with water already in his lungs.

A ragged cough tore out of him, throat raw as he convulsed against iron. Light seared his eyes, the rest of the world lost to concrete, rust, and the sharp gleam of glass. The air stank of bleach and damp. He tried to jerk upright, but a steel yoke cinched around his shoulders and skull, biting the nape of his neck like a jaw.

Chains answered his panic with a patient clatter.

Carter watched from the shadows, pig mask hiding his face, hands buried in his jacket pockets. A breathing silhouette just beyond the floodlight’s reach.

The room had been a church baptistry. A rectangle scooped from the floor, dry and useless. Here, he’d built his own font. The lip was lined with shards of broken glass. The trough’s water was cloudy with dissolved lye. A length of chain ran up to a gearhead winch bolted into a ceiling joist; every tick of the timer sent the winch a quarter-turn, drawing the yoke forward and forcing the head down in a devotional dip.

Kneel, swallow, rise. Repeat
Until truth outweighed denial.

The victim’s wrists were taped together in mock prayer. Between his hands, bound tight, gleamed a surgical scalpel. A brass collection plate waited beside him on a pedestal. Beneath it, a switch calibrated by Carter’s own hand. Enough weight would depress it and cut power to the winch. The only thing that weighed exactly enough was the one thing the victim was invited to sacrifice.

From the record player, the voice spilled, distorted, inhuman:

“Hello, Martin. As a teacher you led children to water to bow their heads and be cleansed from sin. But when a different congregation was performed behind locked doors, you looked away. You passed the plate. 
 
You told yourself it wasn’t your place to judge. But omission is guilt. Today, you will be cleansed in the truth you denied. 
 
Freedom lies in your hands. Your confession must have weight. Sacrifice a part of yourself, let your silence now be the key to redeem your soul. 

 Make your choice.”

A click. 
The timer began.

Martin flinched as the yoke dragged him forward. His forehead cracked the trough’s edge before his face plunged into the lye. He thrashed, whole body heaving against the chain, bubbles screaming up from his nose and mouth. Lye burned his tongue and gums.

The winch gave him three seconds, then reversed, dragging him back out. He broke the surface gasping, coughing blood-stained water on the glass-scored rim.

“Jesus… Jesus, please-” he choked, voice rough.

He stared at the taped scalpel, eyes blown wide. He squeezed his hands together. He gagged, chest hitching. 

The yoke ticked again.
Down. 

The water rushed his sinuses; he felt the glass-lipped rim bite into his cheekbone as the winch dragged him hard to center. Bleach and lye clawed his throat. He tried to hold his breath, but panic stole it. He surged against the chain. The winch reversed. He tore air so hard his ribs hurt.

From the shadows, Carter’s breathing stayed slow, steady. His face hidden behind the pig mask. He noted every detail of the display: the resistance of the neck, the creak of the winch, the panic in the man’s eyes. There was a strange sense of pride towards his work. The build quality here mattered, he’d used cheap hardware on purpose to mimic the copycat’s sloppiness, but not that sloppy. Enough to look like amateur craft. Not enough to fail the spectacle.

He saw Martin look past the trough, towards the brass plate and the lever mounted beneath it. 
He saw realization dawn on his face.

Carter could have made it easier, could have put a knife in reach without binding the hands, could have offered a key buried at the bottom of the trough to force a different choice…but that was John’s way. Mercy hidden in cruelty. 

This wasn’t mercy.

Tick.
Down again. 

The third dunk was longer. Martin tried to lift his head against the gear; the yoke didn’t budge. He fumbled the scalpel toward his mouth. The angle was wrong. The panic in his movements had led the blade across his cheek. 

He came up howling, blood spraying his lips.
“I- I can’t- ” He choked. “Please. I didn’t- I didn’t know-”

“Oh, but you knew,” The scene didn’t require Carter to get involved, he could’ve just let the event play out undisturbed. Yet he got closer to the drowning man, voice thick through the layers of the mask. 

“You knew exactly what was happening behind those closed doors, yet you chose silence. You sat with that poor girl’s mother, told her there was nothing you could do. Your silence bought you comfort. Today…it buys you a chance to survive.”

Hearing the girl’s mother mentioned bled something ugly across Martin’s face. Shame or rage, it was hard to tell. Carter didn’t care. 

The yoke moved. 
Down.

On the fourth dunk, he broke. The decision was made. The scalpel scraped awkwardly along his lower lip before his bound hands found the path. He jammed the blade into his mouth, gagging. His gums split, tongue nicked. The slick lump of muscle that turned prayers into lies being torn. He sobbed around metal. 

Again, down. Again, up. 
He screamed, coughed, bit, until wet sounds filled the chamber.

The metal skittered, cut shallow; the burn of lye spiked into pain bright enough to white the edges of his vision. He wrenched his head up, hacking, then forced the scalpel back between his teeth, sobbing in short, animalistic sounds.

The water started running red. Carter didn’t move. He heard in the whine of the man’s breath that sound, the one victims made when terror turns into something else: resolve, ruin, sometimes both. It tightened something low in his gut. His pulse thrumming.

John would have said this was the moment a person truly saw themselves. But Carter saw more than that: the glint of hope in the eyes of someone who has been promised salvation. Good. Let him cling to that.

Tick.

Water again. He bit down hard. The blade slipped, cut deep. A screeching pain flared bright. He jerked the blade harder. Hands clamped uselessly together, head forced and forced until the rim cut his cheek open and the water made its way inside.  

He finally tore free a chunk of himself with a wet, impossibly loud and inhuman scream. 

The winch reversed. 
He vomited lye and blood. 

The scalpel still hung out of his mouth, a piece of tape still clinging to it. Skin paler than white from blood loss and the solution in which he was soaking.

He spat his mutilated sacrifice into the brass plate. The scale dipped.

For a heartbeat the room was silent except for the restless click of the timer.

The diode flickered red.

The winch did not stop.

Realization dawned. 

Martin’s eyes went huge. First confusion, then sheer terror. A perfect mirrored expression of recognition Carter had seen before. That crude realization that the universe didn’t trade in fairness. 

He pawed, desperately, at the plate, trying to add more weight, smearing blood across brass, sobbing. Half of his face ripped open. 

The diode stayed red; the relay didn’t trip. Carter had tuned it a hair too heavy. 

Close enough to seem possible. 

Not enough to matter.

Tick.
Down.

He tried to keep his head above the razored lip, but the rough weld Carter had intentionally left caught the yoke’s arm, adding a hitch and tilt that threw his face square into the trough. 

He thrashed. The water carried more red now, blooming around him like a stain of ink. 

One last frantic push and then the yoke took his body’s coordination away and replaced it with one rhythm: intake, burn, panic…silence. 

His body convulsed, face raked across the glass, water blooming crimson. The thrashing grew weaker.

The bubbles slowed. 
The timer counted four more ticks. 
The winch reversed. 

His head did not rise fully. On the next pull, it lifted just enough for air to reach a ruined airway; he drew a wet, choking breath. 

Blood foamed, then settled. 
The winch went slack.

He sagged against the chain, bound hands trembling in tiny aftershocks, the scalpel lay long forgotten at the bottom of the font. 

The room smelled like bleach and iron.

Carter stepped into the light. He tugged the pig mask up onto his head, letting it sit there like a hood. The cold air hit his face. 

He leaned in close to the dead man and watched, partly out of habit, partly out of morbid fascination. He waited for that last breath disguised as life. 
Nothing. 

He checked the brass plate, the diode that didn’t switch. He checked the winch; its work done, stopped on cue. He checked the timer; it had run to zero. 

Every piece of the scene would tell the same story: an imitator, sloppy, cruel. Too personal. No philosophy. Not Jigsaw.

He peeled the tape from the recorder, pocketed it. Scattered secondary documentation for the cops to find: verses highlighted in yellow, phrases underlined. The kind of thing that said I want you to know what this is about. That would feed the story a little longer. Traces of someone the Bureau could chase who wasn’t there anymore to catch.

He set the pig mask back down over his face and stood there. For a long moment he simply looked. 

The corpse, the bloodied water dripping over the rim, the silence.

He thought of Hoffman, not his face, but that look that sometimes dropped over it. The one that said he was somewhere else inside himself, distant and exquisitely present at the same time. 

It was the same look Carter could feel setting in now. A kind of vicious serenity. 

He killed the lights and slipped into the service hallway. He locked the rusty doors. 
Ten minutes later he was outside. Rain slicked his jacket clean as he walked back to his car. 

He pulled out his phone, texted a single word:
“Done.”

No reply.
He tucked the phone away. 

The rain thinned to a whisper. Across the street, the stained-glass windows of the shuttered church were black holes, nothing behind them but a void.

As he drove away, his mind flickered. Another room, Another time. Water filling his own mouth. A different test. A different choice between surrender and survival.

He thought about how he had chosen life. 
And how this…this was the shape life had taken.

A decaying room. Truth spilt and dripping off the edges of a font. Silence.

 

Chapter 21: The Liar

The call came at dawn. Security personnel doing rounds at the derelict parish reported a “smell of rot” from a locked room that hadn’t been touched in decades. The responding uniforms pried the rusted doors open and stumbled into the stench of lye and blood.

Floodlights bathed the gutted nave, crime scene tape sagging between broken pews. The victim still chained in place, slumped, arms bound in mock prayer, his ruined face above the baptismal font bloated. The water inside had turned black. Shards of glass clung to the skin like thorns.

Perez stepped forward first, covering her nose against the sour stench. 

“Christ…” she muttered, eyes fixed on the basin. 

Strahm moved closer, jaw tight. “Another showpiece,” he said, circling the victim. “Same ritualistic staging. Same pattern.” His gloved hand hovered near the brass plate and the rotting piece of flesh still laying there.

“Look here,” a tech called. He lifted a bagged cassette recorder. "No tape".

Perez frowned. “He took the tape.” she gestured towards the scene. "This confirms the theory that our mysterious friend does like to stay and watch."

Hoffman, looming near the back of the group, finally spoke. "Maybe." His voice was flat, practiced. "Or maybe there simply was no tape this time. He could be changing his M.O. to differentiate his work from Kramer's."

Carter crouched by the baptismal font, gaze flicking over the chains and the waterline. “No. There must have been a tape. Rules. Otherwise a man does not simply rip a chunk of his face just for the sake of it.” He gestured at the corpse without stepping closer. “So, if we suppose that he does stay to watch the execution of his victims...he’s messy. Too emotionally involved." 

For the briefest moment Hoffman almost bought the act too. Something in Carter's conviction, the way he pronounced those last words, felt off. Too real to be the lie they had crafted. He made a note of it in silence.

"And, if this is personal, it'd be easier to find a pattern to track.” Perez finished off. 

"Agreed...I believe this isn’t random. Look, whoever built this trap used the same mechanisms, the same imagery, the same logic as his first. I believe, he might be trying to make a statement.” 

Perez tilted her head. “Directed at who?”
  
Carter pointed his light to the wall behind the agents 'LIARS' written in scrawly red letters.

"Liars, by the looks of it... I would guess people related to religious backgrounds if we follow the theme of the staging of the victims,” Carter replied. 

Strahm’s eyes narrowed. “So he might be targeting people tied to the church?”

“Maybe,” Carter said, noncommittal. He let the thought dangle, knowing it would take root. “The verses left here point to silence, complicity. Feels like the killer wants to expose something.”

Perez’s gaze lingered on him a moment, brow furrowing as if she wanted to press further. But said nothing.

Strahm only rubbed his temples with his hand and let out a long sigh. The man seemed to get more tired and irritated by the second. 

"Okay... We need to find what these two victims had in common. Something they might have lied about, something they were hiding. We get that. Find the pattern. We find our killer."

 

---

 

Hours later, the precinct’s room buzzed with tension. Photos of both victims, the old priest and the parish teacher were pinned side by side on the board. Files lay scattered across the table, their pages lined with the kind of words that never stopped echoing once you’d read them: abuse, silence, cover-up.

Strahm stood, jaw locked tight, eyes darting across the photographs as though sheer force of will could make the dead speak. “The connection’s not clean yet, we still are missing certain pieces,” he muttered. “But look at the overlap. Both men had documented ties to St. Alden’s parish.”

Agent Perez leaned forward. “They both had worked there fifteen years ago. Both were tied to a case involving child molestation and abuse, but...after many attempts nothing concrete could be found to convict them. The scandal was covered up, money bought silence from the families affected, and our two men were transferred to resume their duties on different communities. That can't be just a coincidence.”

Hoffman leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, “That's a big leap. For all we know, the killer just had access to old parish files. Doesn’t necessarily mean he was personally tied to that particular case. Maybe we should take more time before we start building theories on scraps.”

Strahm bristled at that. “Scraps are all we’ve got. Unless you’ve got a better suggestion, detective?”

Hoffman’s lips twitched, almost a smirk. “All I say is that we should refrain from theorizing until we find more evidence on the matter. We still need to wait for the final reports on the last victim.”

At the table’s edge, Carter flipped through some files and folders. He kept his voice quiet, measured, "With all due respect, Detective. But maybe it’s not just theorizing" His tone was steady as he taped some pictures with his finger, but his hands tightened just slightly on the edge of the page. Whatever emotion was written on his posture, Hoffman couldn't really tell. 

"I believe the copycat’s not picking names out of a hat. Whoever set these traps, they seem to be seeking revenge against the ones that shielded men like these.”

Hoffman’s gaze remained on him, assessing. For just a moment, Carter’s calm mask looked too rehearsed. He could see behind his eyes something close to disgust, maybe anger, something that seemed too...personal.

Perez caught it too. She narrowed her eyes. “You sound awfully certain for someone who’s never profiled before.”

Carter looked up, expression unreadable  “Just saying what I see, Agent.”
But Hoffman caught it. That edge. It was there even if the others couldn't notice too.

The meeting wound down, the FBI promising to dig deeper into the parish ties, Perez pushing for background checks on anyone linked to the diocese scandals. Trace financial records, hush payments, sealed settlements. There were brief mentions on the active Jigsaw investigation, but nothing new had surfaced yet. 

Then, it was over, chairs scraping against the floor as both agents filed out.

Carter stayed a moment longer, gathering files into neat stacks with unnecessary care. Hoffman lingered, watching him from the corner of the eye. He had seen it, that same flicker that had given away something hidden behind thick layers of indifference. The same he had seen at the moment of confrontation as Carter had pinned the copycat by the neck a few nights before. 

When Carter finally rose, Hoffman moved to intercept, blocking the door with casual ease. “You’ve proven to the FBI you got a sharp eye for detail. Good work.” he said, voice teasing, low enough not to carry down the hall.

“Comes with paying attention, Detective. Maybe you should try it more often.” he mocked, his usual grin in place. He tried to walk out of the room, but Hoffman didn't budge.

“Yeah,” Hoffman murmured. “Or comes with being too close to the fire.” 

For a beat, their eyes locked. Hoffman’s gaze testing, prying. Carter’s unreadable, but beneath that teasing attitude crept the dim flame of something raw. 

He broke it off first, brushing past and into the hallway.

Hoffman didn’t press further. He didn’t need to. 

The seed of suspicion had already taken root, and he was determined to find whatever skeletons Carter had kept hidden from him.

Chapter 22: Performance

Notes:

◘ A/N = okay, so...this part is kinda different from the overall mood of the story since it was just me having a silly idea that I wanted to put in writing and then I just kept it because I thought it would be fun

The bullpen was thinning out as the night dragged on. Hoffman had remained at the briefing room as he waited for Carter and the Agents to come back. He leaned over a spread of photographs that he wasn't really looking. His mind elsewhere. 

There was a quiet noise. Carter slipped inside. 

They took the opportunity to discuss their recent movements. Both spoke in hushed tones, barely audible over the general hum of the precinct noises. 

 “Two down,” Carter murmured, eyes scanning the pictures. “Strahm's foaming at the mouth. If they keep chasing this, it’ll buy us weeks.”
 
“Assuming they don’t trip over something you left behind,” Hoffman muttered, meant more as a tease than a reproach.

Carter smirked, stepping closer, deliberately brushing his arm against Hoffman’s. “You think I’d be that careless?”

The detective didn’t answer, just gave him a pointed stare. Carter only leaned in further, his breath brushing the detective’s ear. “Relax. I know what I'm doing.”

And in that moment, he wasn't referring just to their plan. 

For days now, Carter had been aware that the FBI Agents had been keeping an eye on both of them; specially Strahm who never bothered to disguise his suspicions on Hoffman's involvement with Jigsaw, and who was still trying to figure out where Carter fitted in all the mess. 

From the corner of his eye, Carter caught movement at the other side of the door; far enough to feel coincidental, close enough to witness their performance. Strahm and Perez lingered just outside at the hallway, pretending to exchange ideas as they shuffled through papers, stealing glances into the room. 

A wicked spark lit Carter’s eyes. A devious thought taking shape.  

He moved in closer, crowding Hoffman until the older man’s back pressed against the edge of one of the desks. A hand slid deliberately over Hoffman’s chest, fingers tracing the seams of his suit. 

He leaned in, lips grazing dangerously close to Hoffman’s ear.

“They are still watching... They expect to find out what we're hiding,” Carter whispered, soft, poisonous. “But all they’re really seeing now…” His thumb brushed lazily along Hoffman’s collar, just enough to lift fabric and brush skin. “…is how much you let me touch you, Detective.” 

Hoffman stiffened, but Carter’s hand pressed firmer, pinning him to the table in plain sight. 

The hand trailed lower, slow, deliberate. 

Something in Hoffman snapped. 

He caught Carter’s wrist, but not to push it away. His eyes narrowed in false scold, but the hunger in them betrayed him. "You sure like playing with fire." the words hushed, laced with want.

Carter leaned closer to Hoffman. Warm lips between his neck and ear. 
“Careful, with your words, Detective. I know you’d let me burn you alive if it meant no one else could touch you.” 

The words were cruel, teasing, hungry. 

For a moment, Hoffman felt the it hit something deep, something raw. And the worst part was that he couldn't find the will to deny them.

Carter's hand lifted, cupping Hoffman’s jaw, thumb brushing along his cheek in a gesture of possessive intimacy that was hard to deny. 

Hoffman leaned into the touch. Carter’s grin widened. His words dripping with a violent need that he didn't bother to cover up, "See? Even here... You can’t help yourself" His lips hovered a breath away from his, dangerous, mocking. “You want me to make you forget we’re at work. Don’t you?”

Hoffman hated how much truth dripped from it. He didn’t move away. Didn’t stop the way his grip on Carter lingered, thumb sliding unconsciously along the buttons of his white shirt.

And with a final brush of his fingers against Hoffman’s, Carter stepped back. Chuckled low, cruel, satisfied. “Later,” he whispered, pulling back just enough that Hoffman felt the absence as he went away to take a seat. Leaving Strahm and Perez to swallow the image burned into their minds.

Chapter 23: Later

By the time they gathered back together to finish off the details on the second victim, the moment between the detectives might as well have never happened. Carter carried a stack of files, straight-backed, his expression scrubbed of anything but polite focus. Hoffman trailed behind with his usual seriousness clinging to him. 

At their desks, Strahm was already leaning forward, snapping through pages like they were hiding answers. Perez sat straighter than usual, eyes flicking up once and then firmly back to her paperwork, as if by sheer will she could erase what she’d just witnessed.

“Anything on the victim’s ties?” Hoffman’s voice was gravelly, brusque. Business as usual.

Perez tapped a pen against one sheet. “Not much more than what we already know. Two confirmed links. Both victims had ties, indirect, but ties, to the same parish. Records show the church settled out of court with multiple families years ago, quietly, no press.”

Strahm leaned forward, jaw tight. “Cover-up. Years back, both men were connected to a church investigation. Sexual abuse allegations that were buried before they ever saw trial. Both men stayed quiet. One took money, the other simply looked away.”

Carter slid into his seat, nodding as he examined the file he was handed. “I've dug some information on the scandal. Two of those families show up more than once in the records.” 

It was the same careful tone he always used at work, eager, deferential. Not a trace of the man who, ten minutes ago, had pressed Hoffman against a desk while two FBI agents watched from the shadows. Hoffman couldn’t erase it. Couldn’t focus. His eyes dipped once, too long, to Carter’s fingers as he passed another folder across the desk. He felt the memory of that touch like it had branded itself into his skin.

He continued "One family relocated out of state. The other…”  He slid a file across the table. “The Boyles." He pointed to the photo clipped inside: a pale young man, early twenties, unsmiling, eyes hollow. "Eliot Boyle. Twenty-two. Admitted to Cedar Hill psychiatric after his sister’s suicide. Sister was fourteen.”

Perez exhaled softly. “Jesus.”

Hoffman’s expression didn’t change, though his pen dug harder into the page in front of him.

Carter went on, tone kept steady, impersonal. “The sister was among the children directly abused. He was affected too. The father forced the settlement. The boy never recovered. Institutionalized. And...” He paused, flipping another page. “Records stop five years ago. No discharge paperwork. No death certificate. No transfer. He disappeared from the records. No trace since.”

Strahm seized on it instantly. “Gone. No trail, no exit. If he’s our guy, that’s how he’s kept off the radar.”

Perez frowned. “And if he’s dead?”

Strahm shook his head. “Not until I see a body. Until then, he’s the best lead we’ve had on this.”

 

The debate rolled on, case files flipping, names tossed, but Hoffman wasn’t listening. Not really. His mind replayed Carter’s hand against his chest, his voice, whispers like a blade at his throat: You’d let me burn you alive if it meant no one else could touch you... The fleeting moments even before that; Carter's eyes as he stared at the files. They way he seemed to be hiding something.

And suddenly Hoffman couldn’t stay. The tension buzzing under his skin and the thoughts scrambled in his head, too much. 

He shoved back his chair. “Coffee,” he muttered and left the room without waiting for a response.

 

---

 

The cold fluorescent glare in the men’s room did nothing to settle him. Hoffman braced his hands against the sink, head low, trying to focus.
 
 Eliot Boyle. Carter had delivered that file like it was just another piece of evidence, but Hoffman had seen the crack. That flash in his eyes that said there was more to it. And he was determined to find out exactly what. Wanted to dive deeper into the dark void behind Carter's mask.
 
It dragged him back, unbidden, to Carter’s words in his apartment, half a snarl against his ear.
At the time, Hoffman thought him bluffing. But now? Now he wasn’t so sure.

The apartment. That night. The memory wouldn’t leave him. Carter pressing close, eyes burning with violent hunger. Hoffman should have drawn a line. Instead, he’d leaned into it. Wanted more of it. And here, under the sterile bathroom lights, he hated himself for still craving it.

He splashed cold water onto his face, gripping the edges of the sink until his knuckles whitened.

Control. That was the thing. Hoffman was supposed to have it. Over the games. Over the Bureau. Over himself. But Carter...he had peeled it away piece by piece, until Hoffman was standing here, his head a mess. Because he couldn’t stop thinking about the bastard’s mouth hovering near his, whispering threats that he wished were promises.

A noise at the door made him snap his head up. 
Empty. Just his own ragged breath echoing back at him.

He muttered a curse under his breath, straightened, and forced his mask back on before walking out.

Chapter 24: Sealed Reports

The precinct had thinned out by the time Hoffman leaned back in his chair, the hum of late-night fluorescent lights buzzing above him. Carter was already gone, his work done for the day. Hoffman watched him go, expression unreadable. From down the hall, at a distance, came the muffled voices of Strahm and Perez still going over details of the case, still clawing at evidence that stubbornly refused to give.

Hoffman wasn’t interested in them. His eyes stayed fixed on the computer screen. He told himself it was for the case, for the paperwork piled high across his desk, but that was a lie he didn’t even bother believing. 

His fingers moving with careful precision through internal records. Personnel files. Restricted access.

He keyed into Carter’s personnel file. He told himself this was a detail he should have considered doing sooner, right after the young man's transfer. At that time he really just didn't care. But now...now things had changed. 

The file opened on the monitor screen. On the surface everything seemed clean. Decorated marksman, steady promotions, transferred to homicide four years ago. Commendations for bravery in the line of duty. Exactly the kind of file that earned nods and handshakes. 

Not what he was looking for.

The screen lit his face in a sterile glow. He scrolled lower, past the sanitized lines, and found the blacked-out sections. Sealed reports. Buried beneath transfers and recommendations was a redacted entry. He frowned, leaned closer, pulled at the threads. 

A single incident report, seven years prior. No details in the public record. Psychiatric evaluation. His brow arched, lips pulling into the faintest smirk.

There it was. 

The text that surfaced wasn’t much, but it said enough.

Hospitalization. Attempted suicide. No charges. No disciplinary action. 
No clear cause listed. Family matters sealed, personal history locked away.

Patient was admitted to [REDACTED] Mental Health Facility following a suicide attempt at age twenty-one. Currently under the care of Dr. [REDACTED]. Diagnosis: severe depressive episode, suicidal ideation, depersonalization. Patient displayed resistance to treatment and highly volatile temperament. Eventual stabilization noted. Release granted under supervision after six months

Hoffman leaned back, staring at the monitor’s glow and the cold bureaucratic stamp at the end of the file: Recovered. Fit for duty. 

But Hoffman had seen recovery. He knew its lie. 

He leaned back in his chair exhaling slowly through his nose, and thought about Carter sitting across from him in the briefing that morning. And even before that. He thought of that night at his apartment. The alcohol, the sharp words, the way Carter had leaned into his threats, unflinching.

“I’ve already played this game and won."
"I’ve been staring at death longer than you think, detective.”

The words returned like an echo, sharper now.

Suddenly the pieces began to click together. 

Back then, Hoffman had taken them as empty threats. Lack of inhibition from the heat of the moment. But he understood now.

Carter hadn’t just brushed against the edge of death, he had been ready to throw himself into the abyss, and then clawed his way back out.

A bitter laugh escaped him before he could stop it. No wonder they both fit so neatly into this game. John always had a talent for sniffing out the broken ones.

He remembered that morning in Carter’s apartment. Shirt too thin to hide the marks along his body, some faded, some not. He’d dismissed them then, too distracted by the weight of what had happened between them. And scars, Hoffman knew, weren’t just skin deep.

Now, piecing it together, it struck him: It wasn’t his instability, or his rage, or even his insatiable appetite for violence what made Carter dangerous. No. It was the calmness he carried in the face of death itself. 

It made him dangerous because it gave him control. A control Hoffman couldn’t replicate. One born of surviving one's own annihilation.

He could see it now. 

Carter wasn’t fearless because of arrogance. He was fearless because he had nothing left for death to take.

He closed the file with a quiet click, the screen returning to the bland precinct homepage. He would keep this knowledge to himself, for now. 

Around him, the silence of the office pressed in. And in that stillness, one thing had lodged deep:
Carter wasn’t bluffing. He never had been.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 25: Last Steps

The past days had been long and tiresome, dragging on as if time itself had slowed to a crawl. Both had been their busiest, buried in the final setup of their unfinished works. The big game was almost ready. They had an unspoken agreement: Hoffman focused on completing John’s game, Carter kept the FBI distracted with Boyle's case.

The workload was monumental but they always made sure the toll it was taking on them didn't show. Beyond the tasks themselves, they had to perform their usual duties at the precinct, flipping through files with mechanical gestures, whispering just enough to seem engaged, pretending to care. 

Pretend. Always pretend. 

Especially in front of the FBI, whose eyes dissected every movement, every breath. Strahm, in particular, was getting dangerously close, sniffing around, piecing together fragments that could unravel everything. But they reminded themselves, over and over: Later. Time is key.

The day of the big game neared. Hoffman savored the anticipation that came with it. Even in the thrill, there was a quiet calm, the certainty of someone who knew held the upper hand.

They spoke rarely during preparations. Fleeting meetings away from prying eyes, hushed whispers behind closed doors, silent stares that conveyed more than words ever could. 

"When?" Carter had asked, his tone flat, as he stepped into Hoffman's office. Shadows under his eyes had darkened over the past days, adding a certain depth to his stare. 

Hoffman didn’t look up from the note he was scribbling. "Two days. No more." Eyes fixed on the paper. "It'll be done."

Carter shifted, watching the older man’s face, sensing the coiled impatience beneath his calm. “Works for me.” He paused, lowering his gaze to the paper. “And the rest?”

Hoffman set the pen down, folded the sheet neatly, and tucked it into his pocket. “I’ll handle mine. You take care of yours… do as you see fit.”

Without waiting for a response, he rose and moved toward the door, lingering long enough to send a final glance to Carter: don’t screw it up. The younger merely rolled his eyes.

The following days were a juggling act for Carter. Between masks, between roles. He kept spreading the copycat’s work. Victims were chosen carefully, one by one, bound, tested, dead. There was a swell of something close to pride in his chest at the knowledge. 

Strahm drew ever closer. Suspicion clung to every glance, every phrase, as if he could sniff out Carter’s hidden role in the chaos that surrounded the case. Obsession was contagious, and Carter felt its edges pressing against his patience.

Still, he kept the mask on. Smile polite. He pretended. Like he always had.

Two days passed as one. The final pieces slid into place. 
The board was set. 

Chapter 26: Convergence

The evening had crept in quietly and undisturbed. Briefings on the copycat and Jigsaw cases circled endlessly, a spiral of questions without answers.

The room had become still in spite of the restlessness of the people inside. Something close to the calm before the storm. And whether expected or not, the rain was sure to come.

Strahm and Perez sifted through files and photographs, traces long grown cold, updates scarce. As if something darker was brewing silently in the shadows, waiting to be unleashed.

From the other side of the room, Carter could feel the anticipation, the tension. He could almost hear the gears turning in Strahm's head. His frustration was almost palpable. 

Noise drifted from the hallway, pulling their attention. Hushed voices.

"Looks like another doctor went missing from the hospital..." Hoffman stopped by the door as Fisk gave him the news.

"Thanks. I'll check it out." Hoffman grabbed a slip of paper that was handed to him. He didn't come inside. He only donned his jacket, offering the barest courtesy. "If you need me, call my cell" 

Perez tilted her head at the toy in Hoffman’s arms. “Boy or girl?”

Hoffman’s tone was flat, almost dismissive. “Girl.”

"Didn't know you were married" Perez quipped with a soft smile. 

Carter noticed her fleeting glance in his direction, conspiratorial, like she had suddenly stumbled onto something she shouldn’t. The young detective almost laughed at the shy embarrassment that had crept subtly to her expression. 

"I’m not." Hoffman deflected. "It's a short story, believe me.” He smiled politely as he left.

 

---

 

After, the hours stretched painfully slow. Inside the office the tension had not settled. Papers scattered on desks, piles of reports and newspaper clips. Perez held a framed newspaper photo, quietly observing.

"John Kramer owned a company called 'The Urban Renewal Group'. No irony in that, huh?" She spoke to Strahm, who barely looked up. He sat near the TV, folder on the copycat's victims in hand. "I don't get it. There is something that we are missing." 

Perez put down the photo and walked towards his partner, voice lowering. Carter noted the conspiratorial glance she cast at Strahm, a subtle acknowledgment. A quick glance as if making sure their conversation would not be overheard. 

Their exchange was hushed, but not inaudible. The words "Detective Kerry", "message", and "danger" hung in the air like a fragmented breath.

The clock ticked. One. Two. Three times. 

Then the storm broke.

Footsteps hurried in the hallway. Closer. 

A familiar voice rang at the door. All turned to look. 

"We just got a call of shots fired at 2423 Park Place... Rigg’s apartment"

The agents exchanged a glance. They sprang into action. Carter moved with them, face calm but mind thrumming with anticipation.

The game had begun.

Chapter 27: Home

The door was forced open. The apartment hallway became swarmed by the SWAT team. Their flashlights casted round halos on the darkness. 

"Rigg?! Are you in here?!" 

Guns pointed up, ready to fire, they moved quick through the space. Right behind them Carter kept pace with the FBI as attention was drawn towards the living room.

A turn. Eyes widening in shock.
"Christ..." officer Lamanna muttered. 

 The whole room was splattered with blood. Red covering the walls around them. On the floor sprawled, unmoving, a blonde woman's body. Dead. Her face painted crimson and her scalp half-ripped from her skull. 
 
Strahm knelt besides the body. His gloved hand hovering but not touching. His eyes tightened, 

"It's started." voice tense as he got up to his feet. 

Perez and Carter remained at the background. Perez eyes studied carefully the pictures that were left plastering the walls of the room. Carter moved around, looking busy, his eyes carrying the right amount of worry and horror at the gruesome scene. 

His eyes lingered on the Scalp Chair. He didn't approach, he didn't need to. The idle mental image of Hoffman setting the trap up was more than enough; hands tightening bolts and tracing the edges of greased gears. And he knew, the oppressing feeling on his chest was not fear, but anticipation.

"An APB has been issued for Rigg. Everyone's looking." Lamanna informed. 

Strahm couldn't seem to stop pacing around like a caged animal. He barked questions on Rigg's wife, her location. Any information they could use.

Perez’s attention drifted to the pictures on the wall.

Six people. Six faces on the wall. 
Two stood out. 

"You see this?" Her voice low, soft. 
There among the chaos sat the pictures of Detective Eric Matthews and Detective Hoffman.

"Two detectives." She had that same look on her face, the one from back at the precinct. 

Strahm’s clipped voice followed, "Hoffman? We got a 20 on him?" 

"Not yet. Fisk is trying to contact to his cell." 

Carter had never liked the way Hoffman's name rolled out of the Strahm's mouth, as if it disgusted him to pronounce it, as if those few letters carried something rotten. 

And for all it was worth, maybe they did. Something rotten, left buried in the depths of Carter's mind, festering there. An infection he had no intention on finding the cure for.

The agents sifted through photos and materials, debating, theorizing. Tried to find sense among the chaos of the apartment. 

Carter could only indulge in silently savoring the way they were all eating it up. The way they couldn't quiet piece together what they were after. 

"Detective Hoffman is a decorated lieutenant, he doesn't match the profile". Perez interjected. 

And, for a moment, Carter almost broke character and let out a laugh at the comment. 

The agents kept the back and forth theories. Strahm's eyes restless as they dissected every single layer of the scene around him. 

Then, he saw something. 

A message on one of the walls "FOUR WALLS BUILD A HOME". 
There it was. The clue he was looking for. Something that didn't add up. 

He went around the room snatching pictures, one from each wall. 
They all belonged to the same person: Jill Tuck.

"Let's talk to her. Now." Strahm ordered, leading the way. But before they got out of the building, his phone rang.

 

---

 

“Agent Strahm,” the officer on the other end said, voice almost apologetic. “Something just came through for you. An envelope marked 'urgent'. Hand-delivered. No return, no sender. We've already scanned it, no prints. Looks safe to open.”

Strahm’s pulse quickened. “What is it?'”

“A note... it’s a proverb. Or maybe scripture. Hard to tell. ‘Good things come for those who have faith.’ That’s the line. And an address written beneath.”

The sound around him dulled, his focus zeroing in. An address. Another step deeper into the labyrinth.

“Read it again,” Strahm said, his voice rough. He scribbled it down, his hand moving almost automatically. 

He hung up.

 

 

Chapter 28: Closure

Another call, another rush.

An abandoned property, cloaked in night, awaited. Flashlights cut through darkness, careful steps on worn floorboards. The house was big, spacious. The insides were in a derelict state yet there seemed to have been someone living among the ruins. Cans scattered across the floor, a tattered blanket pushed into a corner. Someone had been here. Not long ago.

They found no one. Nothing. 
Or at least that's what is seemed.

Through a broken window, a small construction at the back caught Strahm’s attention. 

"Over there." He pointed, flashlight slicing the gloom. 
They breached the distance, guns raised, doors unlocked with a soft squeak.

Inside awaited chaos. The space reeked of damp stone and rot. Splintered pews leaned sideways. Broken bottles and melted candle stubs across the floor. Black-painted scripture clawing across the walls. 

And in the midst of the scene, an horrifying composition of gears, blood and shredded bone stood in a macabre display. A freshly stiffening faceless body sat half-slumped on a chair. A piece of hand-crafted machinery attached to it. 

 The smell hung in the still air, all-encompassing. A metallic perfume of death and gunpowder that seemed to coat the back of the throat.

Perez crouched beside the body, her flashlight pointed to a pair of faint scars. Jagged lines, carved across the victim's arms. “Identification’s tricky, and it might be too early a guess, but this… this could be Eliot Boyle.”

Carter stepped closer to the trap from behind, his eyes tracing every splinter of metal, every drop of red seeping into the floor. He took in what remained of the body. The face was gone, completely obliterated by the mechanism. What remained was a wreckage of bone and gore. The jaw was a splintered hinge of bone and gristle. The brain, a grayish-white substance, spattered across the nearest wall in a grotesque, abstract pattern. 

A final unholy erasure of all humanity. Torn beyond recognition. He had carefully made sure of it.

He could almost see Hoffman there, his cold and professional facade in place. You would've liked this, wouldn’t you?

"If I had to guess, I'll say he killed himself by putting himself on that thing. "One of the officers mentioned. He pointed to the device. No chains, no straps, no locks. "No visible signs of struggle." 

A note rested on top of a small makeshift altar behind the seated body.

"The sinners have been tried, judged, silenced. May my sister’s soul rest in peace. My work is complete. The lesson has been taught."

The story unfolded without words: years of abuse, loss, vengeance meticulously executed, and now, the killer had completed his final act. 

Strahm paced, skepticism etched across his face. “Convenient,” he murmured. Unconvinced. "So, he took his revenge and then checked out? No... it's too neat.” 

Perez listened, arms crossed, her eyes sliding now and then from Strahm impassive face towards Carter, as if measuring him. 

“That’s what people say when the answer doesn't accommodate to their theories.” Perez tilted her head. “Evidence's there. No struggle. The scrawls on the walls. The scars. Everything points that this is our guy. Our trail ends here, for now... at least until the autopsy says otherwise... Right now, we have more pressing matters on our hands.” 

Her voice softened as if trying to ease Strahm's growing tension, "We need to go back to finding Rigg and Hoffman, before their time is up." 

Strahm shot her a long look as if to say: this is not over. 
His hands rubbed on his face as he let out a long stressed sigh. "Fine."

Carter played his part well. Furrowed brows, concerned frown, a subtle lean forward like he wanted to help but wasn’t sure how. Inside, though, he felt the mask tighten. 

Strahms’s eyes lingered a beat too long on the body. 
He wasn’t convinced, not yet.

 

 

Chapter 29: The Game

Back at the precinct, Jill Tuck was brought in for questioning. As far as Carter knew, Strahm was frothing at the mouth, irritation boiling as he was given nothing useful on the possible location of the game. 

At an adjacent office, Perez sat across from Carter with a more private interrogation of her own. She softened her tone, the good cop mask slipping on. 

“Look, you don’t have to say anything compromising. We know you and Detective Hoffman were… close. So, if there is anything that might come to mind that can help us locate him..."

Carter blinked slowly, brow slightly furrowed in confusion, as if to trying to understand the meaning behind the agent's words. “He’s my superior. We worked the same cases. I really don't know what else to tell you, Agent.”

Perez leaned forward, a polite smile on her lips. “Look, Detective. I’m not trying to pry here. I know about… the other side of your partnership... I know why you’d want to keep it quiet, to protect his reputation. His career. I get it, believe me.” 

Her voice dropped, gentle, almost conspiratorial. “You can trust me. If you care about him, you’ll help us find him. Any information at this point is critical, you know that."

Carter let silence stretch, then exhaled, just enough of a tremor in his breath. His gaze dropped to the table, then flicked back to her, eyes glistening slightly like he’d fought it back for too long. 

“We were… involved. Yes. But it doesn’t mean I know anything more than you do here. He didn’t tell me everything. He never did.” There was some truth in there. Enough to make the lie convincing.

Perez nodded, the sympathetic tilt of her head well-rehearsed. "Okay... Did you know where he was heading after work? Maybe we can start there. He left earlier carrying some things with him. It looked to me as he had an appointment. Do you know who he was meeting?"

Carter softly shook his head, swallowing hard, the perfect image of a man caught between grief and fear. 

"I'm telling you, Agent. I swear, I don’t know...God, I wish I knew more - that I could do more. I just want to find him, you know... before it's too late.”

She studied him a moment longer, then softened. “Alright. That’s enough for now." 

Her hand found his, clutching as if to reassure him. He let her.

"Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get to him on time.” A gesture of empathy he let wash over him, while a cruel satisfaction crawled within.

Oh, Agent, if only you saw how much more there is to us than you believe. 

 

---

 

The rest of the evening blurred in a chaotic symphony of synchronized events. Carter stayed at the precinct, FBI agents chasing leads. The game moved forward: Rigg pressed through traps, numbers ticking down, each step a calculated risk.

There was an intoxicating thrill born from the anticipation of the inevitable. Carter could almost hear the ticking of the countdown in his head. 

His fingers tapped against his desk.

Tick. Tack...

Another player down. 

Strahm dug harder into Jill Tuck, his interrogations burning with frustration. Perez had been brutally injured during their investigation following Rigg's steps. 

Tick. Tack...

The game continued.

Strahm reached the Meatpacking Plant, gun raised.
He called for backup and stormed inside alone.

Tick...

Rigg pressed on, reaching the final room.
A shot. Glass shattering. The door opened...too soon.

Tack...

Eric Matthews was killed. Art Blanc screamed his last. 
Rigg collapsed, injured, bleeding, dying.
He kept on muttering brokenly about the time he had left.

Tick...

Hoffman rose. Arm straps undone.
A look of quiet satisfaction on his face.
A whispered “Game over” as the door was closed.

Tack...

Not far, Jeff Denlon aimed wild-eyed and desperate, forcing Strahm’s hand. 
Another death. Another loose end tied.

Tick...

A heavy door slamming shut.
Hoffman’s shadow sealing Strahm inside.

Tack...

Carter sat at his desk at the precinct as the news filtered back. Perez hospitalized; no localization of Rigg; Hoffman and Matthews not found yet. No news from Strahm. 

He kept his mask on, the image of calculated composure. But his thoughts strayed. He tapped against the desk.

Fingers thumping a rhythmic pattern: Tick. Tack.

The game was almost over.

 

 

Chapter 30: The Hero

Strahm had radioed from Gideon before stepping inside the facility. Every available unit was ordered to the scene. Carter went along with the tide, his face the picture of concern and worry. 

By the time they arrived at the Meatpacking Plant, the place was swarming. Squad cars lined the street, red and blue strobes painting the night. Paramedics clustered, waiting for orders.

The door swung open.

From the yawning dark of the warehouse, Hoffman emerged. Clothes clung wet to his body, hair plastered to his forehead, a smear of blood beneath his nose. He moved like a man who’d survived hell itself, shoulders bowed, eyes hollow. A little girl on his arms, frightened but alive.

Carter almost laughed. Of course you’d walk out a hero while your hands drip with blood they’ll never see.

Paramedics descended, tugging the child away, checking Hoffman’s vitals. He barely resisted, speaking through clenched teeth. 

“He didn't make it. Nobody made it." 

Carter caught it, the sharp finality of it. He knew what it really meant. This wasn't about the game, not about Rigg nor Matthews. It was Kramer, Amanda, both gone. No more leash around Hoffman's neck. The board had been cleared. 

But then... there was a commotion. 

Paramedics rushed past with a stretcher. 

“We got a live one!” someone shouted. 

Carter turned, just in time to see Strahm’s limp form hauled through. Throat and shirt slick with drips of blood. 

His eyes immediately shifted to Hoffman.

For the first time, Hoffman’s composure cracked. He stood frozen, jaw locked tight, his eyes narrowing as he watched Strahm carried into the ambulance. 

That wasn’t exhaustion in his gaze anymore. It was rage. Pure, seething hatred.

And Carter knew, in that instant, that Strahm had stolen something precious: Hoffman’s perfect ending.

If I could kill him for you, I would. I’d tear his throat wider and let you watch him drown on his blood. 

The thought burned hot in the younger detective's mind. Fists so tight he could feel the sting of nails on his skin.

The look that passed between them was brief, almost imperceptible in the chaos, but Carter felt the edge of it.

The game was far from over. 

 

 

Chapter 31: Promotion

The days following the massacre at the Meatpacking plant the station buzzed with activity. Evidence arrived non-stop, plastic boxes and sealed bags of what was left behind of the now over Jigsaw legacy. Bodies were still being dragged out of the place for examination.

Ceremonies were hoisted, words of grief and congratulations mingled. Hoffman's promotion to Detective Lieutenant framed as a hard-earned reward for his commitment to the case. A survivor who had manage to beat in its own game one of the most dangerous opponents the force had to deal with. But Hoffman knew dangerous could take many forms, hide behind well-crafted masks, linger where suspicions were least likely. He accepted the reward with the practiced stoicism of a man who hated the spotlight, nodding along, humbled, offering a few words of encouragement on how life should be cherished.

Meanwhile, behind that calculated detachment, fury over Strahm’s survival coiled hot in his chest. The mere knowledge that he still breathed was enough to make his blood boil with a dangerous intensity. 

A constant reminder that the game was still not over. A reminder that he still hadn't won.

But now, alone in the quiet silence of his apartment, after the long day of constant chatter and handshakes, he had almost convinced himself the day was finished.

Almost.

A knock at his door dragged him back from his thoughts. The noise familiar. He didn’t need to check the peephole. He already knew.

“Detective Lieutenant,” Carter drawled as soon as Hoffman opened the door, the words sharp with mockery, though softened by the faintest curl of a smile. An almost genuine one.

“Didn't know what to get, but since you like things with a rougher edge, I got... this." He stepped inside without invitation, amber bottle in hand. "We should toast to your victory. And mine, of course. ”

Hoffman shut the door behind him, “Wouldn't call it a victory.”

“Don’t act so modest with me.” Carter brushed past, already in the kitchen, pulling glasses from a cabinet he had no business knowing the location of. He poured.

“You played your role well. Everyone bought it. So... here’s to fooling the whole damn department and the FBI.”

That stupid smile wouldn't leave his lips. Hoffman almost let himself do the same for a second.

They clinked glasses, liquid catching the weak sterile light above. Hoffman drank hard. Gloom over his features. Carter watched, eyes glinting with the same unnerving sharpness of his as he went over the details of his latest moves. 

“It's closed,” Carter said casually, almost smug. “Made sure your friends at the Bureau won’t waste any more of our time. The body was tricky, but the hardest part was exchanging the records so they would match.”

Hoffman set his glass down. “It was pretty reckless though. How long do you think it'll take for them to find that it was all staged?”

"They won't." The tone was sharp, final.

Hoffman’s silence was answer enough. He hated it. Hated that Carter was right. Hated even more the hint of pride laced in his words at how cleanly he had pulled it off.

Carter smirked, tilting his glass lazily. “Meanwhile, I believe you’ve got bigger problems. Strahm. Alive. Breathing. That must sting.”

Hoffman's voice was gravel, dark with restrained violence. “I’ll take care of him.”

"I know you will." There was no teasing this time. Carter’s gaze lingered on him, "I knew it from the very moment I caught you staring at his pathetic limp form on that stretcher. I saw it in your eyes: you would've ended him right there and then... A part of me wished you'd had."

Hoffman remained unreadable, pulse tightening. But it was not only the rage at the mention of Strahm's name that flooded his system. 

A silence stretched between them. Carter leaned closer, arms folded on the table, almost intrusive in the small space between them. Hoffman’s breath faltered, almost imperceptible. Still he refused to give the other man the satisfaction of an answer. 

He reached closer still, the air tightening. His hand lifted then settled flat against Hoffman’s chest, just above his heart. Warm. Skin brushing skin where shirt buttons gaped open at the collar. The hand hovered higher, fingers loosely curving at his neck.

Hoffman should have pushed him back. Should have reminded him of the danger of crossing lines. Instead, he exhaled, leaning infinitesimally into the touch.

Carter’s smile deepened, but there was no warmth this time, only predatory uninhibited hunger. 

“Feels familiar, doesn’t it?” Words spilling with the precision of a blade. 

A memory sparked unbidden; hot breath, grunts and sweat, words too sharp, heat too close. Hoffman's felt himself slowly slipping, slowly being dragged under...again.

The shift in the air was palpable. Carter’s thumb brushed against Hoffman’s pulse point, slow, deliberate. The faint scrape of his nail against bare skin. Hoffman’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t move.

Carter’s eyes narrowed, sharp but alive with something dangerous. “I wish I could’ve seen it, you know. That night. Wish I could’ve seen you bound to that chair, gagged, bloodied...helpless.”

For one suspended beat, the world narrowed to the sound of their breaths, the weight of contact, the coil of something that had nowhere safe to go.

“You think I don’t see it, do you?” Carter murmured. “The way you enjoy it. I saw it in you from the first moment I pinned you down on that desk. You can keep your act all you want. But we both know, that deep down you hate me because you can't help yourself from wanting more." 

Hoffman’s hands clenched at his sides, trembling slightly with restraint. He couldn't deny the burn, the way those words slithered into his brain like a toxic fog, clouding his thoughts in a way that made all inhibitions blur. 

And when Carter’s mouth hovered close, breath ghosting against his lips, something inside him snapped. 

Almost against his will, he let himself lean, ever so slightly, into Carter’s hand at his jaw. Just enough to prove him right. 

“Just this once,” he whispered.

The glass between them shattered. 

The grip tightened on his jaw, possessive and hungry, pulling in. The kiss collided hard. Carter groaned into it, triumphant, pressing closer, one hand fisting in Hoffman’s shirt to drag him near, the other slipping past fabric to graze bare skin.

Heat flared, raw and immediate. Hoffman’s self-control buckled. His grip sliding to Carter’s nape, anchoring him, devouring his mouth as well as the moment as if he could burn it out of himself. Carter answering every rough drag of Hoffman’s mouth with one of his own.

Clothes pulled, collars loosened, the scrape of nails across skin. Just enough to feel the heat of flesh against flesh, the undeniable reality that the line between them had been crossed again, and this time, they both had let it.

Hoffman broke away for a moment, breathing ragged, forehead pressed to Carter’s as if he could will the world into silence.

“This never happened,” he muttered, though his voice betrayed him with its hoarseness.

Carter’s answering smile was razor-sharp, “Of course not" His thumb dragged idly over the hollow of Hoffman’s throat, possessive in its subtlety. “Our prize. Just once.”

It was a lie that neither bothered to believe in.

 

---

 

When the fuel had been exhausted and they just stayed there, bodies sore and spent in the aftermath, none had dared to brake the almost reverential quietness that had settled. As if the world had been reduced to the gloom of the room and the sound of their breathing filling the void.

And in that stillness, Hoffman allowed his mind to wander. His thoughts seemed to be nowhere and everywhere at the same time this past days. Too much work, too many lies. Inevitably, his attention shifted back to Strahm. He remember the bitter taste of seeing him carried out of that building. Alive. Souring instantly the pride on his victory. 

He found himself clenching his jaw so hard it hurt. The feeling wouldn't leave him. The raw need to see the man eliminated, erased from existence, once and for all. No more loose ends. 

Suddenly he thought about that morning at the station. He thought about the oddly familiar note that sat at his desk early that day. Like an old ghost. It had gnawed at his brain non stop as he contemplated the possibilities.

"Strahm knows." Hoffman rasped low. Face unreadable under the dim light coming through the windows. "Or at least someone knows more than they should"

Carter stirred a bit, still he remained in place and didn't face him. "Why's that?"

"Found something this morning. Could be Strahm trying to make me feel cornered so he can act."

"Then you better watch your step" Even as shadow enveloped his features, Hoffman could still feel the grin in his voice.

The conversation became sparse after. Casual comments on unfinished work, possible risks. The tone sometimes shifted. The words shorter but lighter. Till there was nothing left to say. The silence became absolute, filling the space where a thousand confessions could have been made. 

The evening dragged on as if time refused stubbornly to let the quietness pass. And, if in that shared darkness, under the thick veil of night, they had found something close to comfort, it was something that was better left said without words.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 32: Suspicion

The station always seemed too bright in the mornings after too long nights. The fluorescent lights glowed without mercy, exposing every shadow beneath the eyes, every crease in a shirt, every slip in composure. Carter had arrived early, slipping into his chair with the weariness of someone who hadn’t really slept. He worked through his paperwork with mechanical precision, the sound of his pen scratching over forms a steady rhythm. Somewhere across the building, Hoffman was already moving, his footsteps echoing faintly as he made his way down to the evidence room.

The shelves there smelled faintly of dust and plastic. Evidence boxes and bags labeled in thick black marker lined the racks. Hoffman moved with care, his eyes scanning until he found what he wanted: a phone, sealed, tagged. His hand lingered over the plastic just a moment, the weight of what it represented heavy and strangely satisfying. He straightened just as an officer appeared down the aisle.

“Detective Hoffman. You’re wanted at the hospital…It’s about Agent Perez”

Hoffman only gave a small nod. He left, sliding the bag into the inner pocket of his jacket.

 

---

By the time Hoffman got back, irritation simmered beneath his skin. Perez was dead, but Strahm circled closer with his hoarse questions and impossible suspicions.

Why did she say your name?

The words clung, needling at him long after he left the Agent behind in that empty hospital room.

Carter sat hunched at his desk, the pile of reports in front of him feeling endless. His handwriting grew heavier, as if each word cut into the page. His eyes burned from fatigue. It wasn’t the work, it was the silence. He didn’t like this kind of silence. Too much room for thoughts. 

His gaze flicked up with a spark of curiosity when Hoffman loomed beside his desk. The man didn’t waste time, his voice low and private, a conversation meant to be overheard as nothing more than routine.

“We’ll go over things later,” he said simply, eyes holding Carter’s with weight. “My office.”
Carter understood. He nodded once.

 

---

 

That night, they began the work John had left behind. The monitor room glowed dimly with the flicker of security feeds. The walls were lined with some cluttered shelves carrying mementos of previous times. Behind the row of monitors, a board was crowded with the information of the five players who would soon join the game.

Inside the chambers there was a suffocating smell of oil and the metallic scent of tools, the clank echoing as they adjusted gears and tested mechanisms. Both worked side by side, tightening bolts, checking alignments. Hoffman gave directions in his usual clipped tone, while Carter fetched tools, steadied frames, occasionally offered a few suggestions. 

They spoke little, but the silence between them was always filled with noise, the grind of metal against metal, the weight of what they were preparing.

At one point, Carter leaned back, wiping the sweat from his brow, his eyes scanning the half-assembled machinery.

“What’s with this one again?”

“Five people,” Hoffman replied, securing the bolts. “They’ll be forced to work together or die trying alone.” He checked the alignment, grunted in approval, then reached for another piece.

Carter’s lips quirked into something close to amusement. “Looks like teamwork isn’t really their strength, according to their files.”

“They built their careers off screwing people,” Hoffman spat the words like a bad taste. “John wanted them tested as a group for a reason.”

“Poetic,” Carter said, tone laced with sarcasm. He stood, heading towards the tool box, but paused for a second in front of the giant V-shaped blades. The temptation was there. Instead he just went to gather some things and kept on working. 

Silence stretched as Hoffman adjusted a clamp on the steel rig. Carter leaned against the wall beside him. “Here, use this one. You’re putting too much strain on your wrist.” 

Hoffman’s mouth curved faintly, eyebrows raised. “Hope you're not getting soft on me.” He set the wrench down, straightened, and wiped his hands on a rag. “Did I catch you in a good mood? Or should I expect some kind of confession?” There was a teasing mock behind that.

"Screw you.”

Hoffman’s lips stretched into a thin but visible grin. “Maybe later.” 

That earned a short laugh from Carter as they both resumed their tasks.

On the monitor’s screens, the empty chambers awaited, as if holding their breath. Tools clattered, bolts locked into place. It was a shared rhythm they both understood.

 

 

Chapter 33: Ghosts

It was the next day, Carter sat at his desk at the station, flipping idly through the details of mundane case files. He balanced a pen on his fingers, his mind trying for the third time to read the same line of the text he needed to review. He heard something.

A voice cut through the noise in his head. Familiar. Warm. Unexpected.

“Jamie?”

He froze. He snapped his head up sharply. No one had called him that in a long time; a very long one. 

A  woman stood by the door escorted by an officer, tentative but smiling, curls loose around her shoulders. Her tanned skin glowing under the harsh light, eyes bright and searching, carrying the same warmth he remembered.

For a moment, Carter kept silent, the image too real. He blinked once, standing to greet her. 

"Lena?” His voice cracked slightly, his usual composure faltering. The name sounded strange in his mouth, soft but heavy with memory. 

Her smile widened at his recognition as she approached. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember me.”

“Remember?” A soft laugh slipped out of him, awkward and incredulous. “It’s been… what, years? Of course I remember.”

She tilted her head, studying him, the same way she always had when she wanted to read more than his words. “You look different.”

“So do you,” he admitted, eyes flicking over her, then quickly away. He shoved his hands into his pockets, forcing his tone into something casual. “What are you doing here?”

“I moved last week. Heard you were working homicide now,” Lena said simply. “I wanted to see if it was true.”

Carter swallowed hard, struggling between the rush of familiarity and the spike of unease threading through him. He managed a faint smile. 

“Well, you found me.”

When Hoffman entered moments later, Carter’s composure returned, sharper edges reassembling.  “Detective,” he said smoothly, “this is Lena. An old friend.”

Hoffman’s gaze flicked between them, lingered on her just a little too long, unreadable, assessing. “Nice to meet you.” 

She smiled politely, but Carter could feel the subtle shift in the air. He didn’t let the silence stretch.

“I’m mostly done here. I’ll take a short break, we’ll grab coffee, catch up.” His tone was light, but when he glanced back at Hoffman, it was with the subtle deference of asking permission.

Hoffman pulled him aside just enough, his voice low “Don’t get too distracted.” His gaze burned into him, a warning, then shifted to Lena, who waited patiently by the desk.

Carter’s smile was thin, deflecting. “It’ll be ten minutes. You’ll live.”

 

---

 

The diner was quiet at that hour, only a few customers hunched over coffee mugs. A jukebox in the corner hummed faintly with an old blues track.

Lena wrapped her hands around a steaming mug. She still carried a soft smile tugging at the edges of her lips. “It’s been, what, seven? eight years?”

“Nine,” he answered without thinking. The number lived in him, etched into his bones. He cleared his throat, tried to cover the slip. “I, uh… I counted.”

Her eyes softened, but she let the silence sit for a beat before breaking it. “You look healthier. Stronger. You used to… well, you were always running on empty back then.”

“Guess I finally learned how to sleep,” Carter said, stirring his coffee without drinking it. He tapped the spoon against the rim, a subtle nervous rhythm. “How about you? Where’d you end up?”

“Teaching,” Lena replied. She smiled, small and proud. “High school literature. Keeps me busy.”

Carter smirked faintly. “Guess someone had to make sense of Shakespeare.”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t like it,” she teased. “I still remember you quoting Macbeth under your breath when you thought no one was listening.”

He chuckled, embarrassed. Hands fidgeting with the borders of his napkin. “You’ve got a good memory.”

“I had to. You never talked much. When you did, it mattered.”

That landed heavier than he expected. He shifted in his seat, reaching for his coffee at last. It was lukewarm, way too bitter, but it gave him something to focus on besides her eyes.

“Do you ever…” Lena hesitated, her fingers tracing the rim of her mug. “Do you ever think about back then?”

Carter’s jaw clenched. His mind flickered to uninvited memories. Hands stained red, the steady silence after, and her hand, its warmth, holding his. He forced a shrug. 

“Not really... Some doors are better left closed, you know.”

She studied him, unconvinced, but let it go. Instead, she leaned forward, voice lighter. “I used to worry about you. A lot.”

He scoffed, though his chest tightened. “You didn’t have to.”

“Of course I did,” she said simply. “You were… you were like family.”

Carter swallowed. Something about her words made him both ache and bristle. He needed to steer away, fast. 

“So. Teaching. Literature. Got any kids who actually read the books?”

She laughed, the sound bright in the dim diner. “One or two. The rest… well, they're harder to convince.”

“Figures,” he muttered, smirking.

The conversation drifted into safer ground. She told him about her students, her apartment across town, the dog she was planning to adopt next week. He responded with clipped comments, enough to keep it flowing, but every now and then his gaze lingered a bit too long on her hands, her smile, the way she leaned in as if no time had passed at all.

But beneath it all, a current pulled at him, unsettling, gnawing at his brain.

At one point, Lena asked softly, “You’re too quiet. Are you… okay?”

Carter forced a smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m fine.”

She nodded slowly, but her expression told him she didn’t believe it.

 

---

 

That night, back in the chambers, Hoffman worked on tightening bolts along the frame of a heavy steel door mechanism, sweat streaking down his temple. He noticed the difference. Carter was slower, distracted. The man sat on the floor across from him, filling yet another of the big glass jars with metallic shrapnel up to the brim. Fingers already nicked at the tips, some accidentally, some not.  

“Pass me that one,” Hoffman muttered without looking.

Carter slid the tool across the floor in silence. His quiet almost looked like concentration, but later he dropped one of the nail boxes he carried, cursed under his breath, his thoughts somewhere else. Hoffman didn’t say much, but his warnings were clear. His tone wasn’t angry, but it carried weight.

Silence stretched as Hoffman adjusted a clamp on the steel rig. Carter picked up a shard of metal, running it between his fingers absently, the edge catching the light. His voice broke the stillness, quieter this time.

“I’m meeting up with Lena tomorrow. Dinner.”

Hoffman stilled, turning his head just slightly. “I noticed. You've had that stupid glow on your face since this morning.”

“She's...different, you know. From you and me” Carter’s tone was guarded, unreadable. His eyes focused on the small piece of metal running between his fingers. He pressed the pointed tip hard enough to breach the skin, a tiny scarlet drop emerged.

Hoffman’s gaze lingered on him, “You better keep your head on the game.”

Carter gave a humorless laugh, tossing the shard back into a crate. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Hoffman didn’t reply, tightening another bolt with deliberate focus.

 

 

Chapter 34: Focus

Nights blurred into each other, half spent working in the game, half spent at Lena’s apartment. She made him dinner, touched him gently, whispered like she could still save him. He let her, almost believing it, but each moment left a hollowness inside. Her softness reminded him too much of a time he’d already buried.

One time she'd cooked, though Carter barely touched his plate, distracted by the shelves lined with books, the framed photographs of her smiling with students, friends, a life so far from his.

“You’ve changed,” Lena said after a while, breaking the silence as she poured him more wine. “Not just older. Rougher. You carry yourself like you’re always bracing for a fight.”

Carter smirked, swirling the liquid in his glass. “Maybe I am.”

“That man you were talking to the other day,” she added carefully, watching his reaction. “Detective Hoffman, right?”

Carter froze mid-sip. He set the glass down slowly. “…Yeah. Why?”

“There’s something about him,” Lena admitted. “The way he looks at people. At you...I don’t trust him.”

A sharp laugh escaped Carter before he could stop it. “You never did like cops.”

“I liked you,” she countered softly.

That silenced him. He looked down, jaw working, the flicker of conflict in his eyes.

“Just...don't let people like that change who you are, Jamie.” Lena pressed, her voice still gentle. 

The words hit like a knife. Because the truth was Hoffman hadn’t changed him. Hoffman had complemented him in ways no one had before; in ways no one else could.

Carter leaned back, forcing a smile, though his knuckles whitened around the stem of his glass. “You think you still know me, huh?”

“I know enough,” she said, and for a moment, her certainty unsettled him more than her doubt.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Lena said softly after a beat. “But I still remember that night. You showed up at my door, shaking. I didn’t ask questions, but I knew.”

Carter froze, breath caught. “Knew what?”

Her eyes met his steadily. “That it was finally over.”

For a moment, Carter thought the room was moving, the noise too loud. He still held her glance, expression blank. Finally, he whispered, “I had to.”

She touched his cheek gently. “I never judged you for it. I never will.”

Something twisted in him at her touch, a kind of comfort that pained him, burned him from the inside out. He leaned into her palm before pulling away, mask snapping back into place. 

“We shouldn’t talk about that.”

Lena nodded, lips pressed thin, but her eyes stayed on him, searching.

 

---

At the workshop, Carter was late. Again. The clatter of steel against concrete echoed through the half-finished chamber. Hoffman stood  tightening a bolt with deliberate force. The grind of the wrench masked the sound of Carter entering, jacket slung over his shoulder. He looked tired.

Hoffman had seen the shift. The distraction. The way Carter came back smelling faintly of perfume instead of his usual smoke and liquor. A sharp feeling boiled along his anger. She was softening him, pulling his away from what mattered, pulling him into something dangerous. Carelessness meant exposure. Exposure meant both getting caught. 

And still, Hoffman felt the bite of something uglier beneath the logic. He tightened his grip on the wrench until the edges dug into his palm. 

“You’re late,” Hoffman muttered without looking up.

Carter rolled his eyes. “What else is new?”

“You keep this up, you’re going to screw us both.” The wrench slammed down on the table. Hoffman turned, eyes sharp. “This isn’t optional. You don’t get to disappear for hours and come back half-assed. You either show up or you don’t.”

Carter’s jaw twitched. “I am showing up. You just don’t like the way I do things.”

“You’re getting sloppy,” Hoffman shot back. His voice cut like wire pulled too tight. “You’re distracted. Half the welds you’ve left I had to fix myself. That girl--”

“Don’t,” Carter snapped, stepping closer, voice low but brimming.

Hoffman smirked without humor. “She’s a liability. You know it. If she sticks around, you risk this entire operation. She has to go. We can’t afford mistakes.”

The younger man turned,  “And what? You’ve never made a mistake in your life?”

“I’ve never let a piece of ass get in the way.” The words landed heavily, deliberate.

For a heartbeat, the room went dead silent.

Carter’s eyes were sharp, feral. His chest heaved, breath ragged. He wanted to shut Hoffman up, to slam him against the wall until he swallowed those words.

 Instead, he moved in close, so close their foreheads nearly touched. 

“You don’t get to talk about her.” Carter snarled low.

Still Hoffman didn’t back down. His hand came up, gripped Carter’s shirt at the collar. 

"You want to test me?” Hoffman snarled, eyes burning into his. “Go ahead. But you know I’m right”

Carter’s words twisted into something between a laugh and a growl, too sharp to be either. “Careful, Mark. You keep pushing, one of us won’t walk out of here.”

They stood locked like that, each daring the other to move first.

After a bit, Hoffman released him slowly, gaze never wavering, and stepped back. But the tension stayed thick in the air, a taut wire ready to snap.

Neither spoke again that night.

 

 

Chapter 35: Reflection

The following day, Carter was at Lena’s apartment again. She made tea, her movements unhurried, deliberate, stark contrast to the way he’d been snapping at metal hours before.

“You’re distracted,” she said, placing the cup in front of him.

He stared into the steam, lips twitching into a ghost of a smile. “Maybe I'm just curious of what normal looks like.”

Her brow furrowed, but she didn’t press. Instead she sat beside him, her hand brushing his. He let it stay there, the warmth seeping into him in a way that felt almost alien.

But later, when her hand slid higher, when her lips pressed against his throat, against his lips, his response was too sharp, fingers digging into her waist, hard. She gasped, not with pleasure but surprise.

The silence after stretched long and heavy, until she kissed him again, softer this time, as though trying to anchor him to something gentler. He let her, but his hands curled tight at his sides, knuckles white.

He let her guide him onto the bed, the mattress dipping under their weight. Her hair spread across her pillow like a stormy sea at night. 

She lay on her side, tracing light patterns along his arm as he stared at the ceiling, silent.

“You’re somewhere else again,” Lena whispered.

He turned his head, met her gaze. “I’m just not used to this.”

“This? Sex?”

“Softness.” The word scraped out, almost foreign.

She smiled faintly, kissed his shoulder. “You know, life doesn't need to be so hard all the time.”

He almost laughed. Almost. Instead, his fingers grabbed her hip, pulling her closer. Her breath hitched, letting her body be pressed snugly against his. 

Her hands slipped beneath his shirt again, fingertips grazing scars she didn’t ask about. Her touch was reverent, almost worshipful.

For a moment, Carter let himself sink into it. Her body beneath his, pliant, tender, welcoming. Her breath soft against his throat, the taste of her mouth sweet. 

This could be it, a thought whispered somewhere deep. A life away from blood. A life away from the endless cruelty. A life...normal.

But even the words ringed hollow. Foreign. Like a distant and faded memory.

As Lena’s nails skimmed his back, Carter’s gaze flicked past her, caught on the mirror across the room. His reflection stared back. A stranger and himself at once. 

And in that fractured image, his thoughts slipped.

He remembered teeth sinking into his throat, his hand forcing Hoffman's head back, the guttural sounds torn out of him in moments of pain and hunger. He remembered the violence, the control, the way blood tasted when it touched his tongue.

Lena’s gasp drew him back, but only halfway. Her softness felt incomplete, insufficient. His body moved with hers, but his mind spun elsewhere. In his head, whispers curled like smoke. Torn between the warmth below him and the need clawing at his brain. 

There was an echo in the void, Hoffman's voice or his, maybe both, he could not tell: Kill her.

Carter’s breath shuddered. His hips ground harder, his mouth crushing hers in a kiss too rough to be tender. She whimpered, pulling back slightly, her hands pressing against his chest.

“James...wait, slow down--”

But he couldn’t. Didn’t want to. The rawness coursing through him was electric, unbearable. He pinned her wrists above her head, teeth scraping against her neck, biting down until she cried out. The fear in her words only heightened the pulse pounding in his veins.

Her voice broke, “You’re hurting me.”

For a second, he almost heard Hoffman’s deep laugh, urging him further. The image of Lena blurred, her wide frightened eyes replaced by flashes of memory, of Hoffman kneeling bloodied at his feet, of broken bodies in pools of red.

Then his gaze caught the mirror again.

The reflection froze him. Not Lena beneath him. Not the softness she offered. But himself; eyes dark, teeth bared, twisted into something feral. It was Hoffman’s shadow staring back, it was Boyle’s throat under his hands, it was every victim before and every victim to come.

And in that moment he knew: no matter how tender her hands, no matter how soft her love, he could never be this man she wanted. He wasn’t hers. And she couldn't give him what he needed.

His grip faltered just long enough for her to whisper his name again, trembling. Her tone wasn’t angry, but it wasn’t nothing. And the look in her eyes was something Carter could not understand. He rolled away, muttering an empty apology and something about needing air as he put his clothes back on, and left her staring at the ceiling alone.

The cold air outside didn't help. Hoffman’s voice still echoed in his mind

She has to go.

And for the first time, Carter wondered if he might be right.

 

---

 

The cold air bit at his skin as he walked, Lena’s perfume still clinging to his skin, words still echoing in his mind. 

He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. 

He stumbled into his own apartment. Rushed to the bathroom. He gripped the sink till his knuckles whitened. He splashed cold water over his face, but it wasn’t enough. 

The heat too much, the craving too loud. He wanted more. He needed more. 

With a sudden motion, he punched the mirror, glass cracking, splintering.

A jagged fragment gleamed in his hand like a relic. He pressed it to his arm and dragged. Steady. Not deep enough to be lethal. Deep enough to be felt, to be imprinted in his memory and skin. Just enough. Just right. 

The blood welled, warm, spilling down his skin. His breath shuddered, quickened, heat rushing through him. The pain, the control, the twisted relief that violence always gave him. 

It was almost bliss.

When the haze passed, he patched himself up in silence, calmer, steadier.

 

 

Chapter 36: Tiles

The following morning the station gnawed at Carter’s nerves. Phones ringing, voices droning, lights buzzing like flies. Every sound burrowed under his skin. He hadn’t slept, not really. Lena’s touch lingered. Too many thoughts tangled until he couldn’t tell them apart.

He hadn’t faced Hoffman all morning, he hadn’t wanted to. The static kept getting louder again. He didn’t know if it came from his own head or the broken part of him that had long since blurred with Hoffman’s voice. He slipped away before anyone could notice, down the long hall to the restroom marked Out of Service. 

The door groaned on its hinges, the flickering light hummed overhead. He pressed both palms to the wall, then slammed his fist into it. Once. Twice. Over and over until his knuckles split. Again. Again. Blood smeared against the white tile. 

The pain bit sharp, but it wasn’t enough. He slid down to the floor, head tipped back, breath jagged. The silence pressed in, thick and suffocating.

She’s not you

He muttered to no one, even if he wasn’t sure if the words had left his mouth. 

There were footsteps. Muted and distant. He imagined the weight of them, deliberate, inevitable. He thought of Hoffman’s stride. His lips twitching at the thought. 

Anticipation coiled hot in his gut, sharp, wrong. Like waiting to be punished. Like waiting to be claimed. It was like waiting forever, as if the world around him ceased to move. 

There was a soft echo somewhere, and he wondered if this time he was right. Maybe it was just the thumping of his heart. 

The silence stretched too long, he could feel it crawling beneath his skin. But then, there was noise again. Steady like a pulsing heartbeat. Closer.

The door creaked open.

I knew you'd come

Hoffman filled the frame, heavy shoulders, eyes cutting straight to the blood on Carter’s hands. Something twisted in his chest, not concern, not exactly. Something uglier.

“You finished?” Hoffman’s voice was rough, barely keeping steady.

Carter’s laugh scraped low. “Depends what you mean by finished.”

Hoffman stepped in, shutting the door behind him. The humid and stale air grew heavier. He closed the distance in two strides, fists grabbing Carter’s jacket, slamming him back against the wall hard enough to rattle tile.

“You think this is a game?” His voice was half-growl, half-snarl, vibrating with a fury he hadn’t meant to let show. “You let her get under your skin. You let her distract you." 

He shook him once, sharp, his grip bruising, the motion snapping the back of his head against the wall. And for a second Carter wondered if his thoughts would shatter under the force.

“You want me to get caught? I don’t care what she’s to you, but I won’t let you fuck this whole thing up just because some bitch doesn't let you keep it together.”

Carter only stared back, lips curling faintly, not in defiance but in something harder to point. His pulse jumped at the pressure, at the venom, the heat in Hoffman’s tone. He drank it in.

Hoffman shoved him harder into the wall, face close, spit sharp on the words:

“She goes, Carter. Or I swear to God, I’ll do it myself.”

Carter’s breath stuttered. Not from fear. From something far worse. He wanted this. Wanted this fury grounding him, wanted the promise hidden in the threat.

Hoffman let go, but the words still clung to the air, thick as smoke. He turned away, jaw tight, hiding the jagged edge of what he felt and refused to name. Deep down he knew there was more to it than strategy underneath his rage.

Carter straightened slowly, rolling his sore shoulder, a faint grin tugging his lips. His knuckles still bled, but his head had never been clearer.

 

---

 

Hours later, Carter sat alone outside Lena’s apartment. The glow of the streetlamp stretched across the street, slicing the dark into yellow and black. His gloved fingers tapping restlessly, the skin of his knuckles still raw from that morning.

He could still feel the voices pressing in, louder, sharper, as if the whispers were digging into the marrow of his bones.

His chest tightened, not with pain but with a strange, steady calm. He thought of Lena's face, the way she’d looked at him with concern, with patience, with something close to love. 

He walked to the door. Knocked.

When Lena opened it, she smiled, soft as always. “Jamie. You’re late.”

He smiled back.

“Yeah,” he said quietly, stepping inside. “I know.”

 

 

Chapter 37: Trust

Her apartment smelled faintly of coffee and old books, the kind of quiet warmth Carter was not familiar with. Lena let him in, her smile soft, her eyes tracing his face like she was trying to read something hidden there. He let her.

“Rough day?” she asked, touching his arm lightly.

“You could say that.” His voice was steady, calm, almost comforting. He didn’t sit. He didn’t take off his jacket nor his gloves. He just looked at her, drinking in the sight, as if trying to memorize every curve, every shadow. Trying to find the piece he was missing.

She tilted her head, concern flickering in her eyes. “You look tired... Is everything alright? I've been worried about you since the other day.”

Carter moved closer. “I'm fine. I just… wanted to see you.”

Her smile widened just a fraction, and when she leaned in, his hand rose, tracing the outline of her shoulder, the slope of her collarbone. Fingers that could snap a neck with ease mapped her like he was sketching her into memory. She shivered under his touch, not in fear, she trusted him. And trust he knew was something that cuts deeper than any blade. He kept track of her reactions, the subtle shift of her breath, the slight twitch of her mouth, the collection of things that made her.

“You’re...warm,” he murmured, almost to himself.

“What?”

He kissed her then, slow, deliberate, reassuring. An act almost sentimental. Her lips felt softer than nights before, and for a heartbeat he thought he might shatter. Her hands rose to his chest, not pushing, just grounding him. And for a moment he let himself imagine a different life: mornings with her laughter, nights without blood. The promise of a life he knew could never have. It was almost enough to make him falter. Almost.

The promise was incomplete.

And his hands had already circled her neck.

She stiffened at the shift, pulling back to look at him, confusion blooming in her eyes. He pressed his forehead to hers, whispering low, intimate:

“Shh. Just breathe. With me.”

Her pulse fluttered beneath his thumbs. He felt it like a drumbeat, frantic, desperate. The voices and the noise finally fell silent, replaced by a clarity so sharp it felt holy. This wasn’t rage. This wasn’t lust. This was release.

She shouldn't have opened that door.

Her nails dug weakly into his arms, but he only held her tighter, mouth brushing her ear. Words soothing. A farewell lullaby.

“It’s alright. You know I won't hurt you. Just close your eyes. Let me take the past away.”

The world narrowed to her heartbeat against his palms, the shallow gasp of her breath, the growing stillness spreading through her limbs. Flashes of memory bled through, crashing, reforming, vanishing. 

A body crumpled on the kitchen floor, blood pooling like paint on tile, the smell of iron heavy in the air. Back then, the act had felt like power. Now, as Lena sagged against him, it felt like peace. 

He had once reclaimed the life that he had been stolen. But now...now he would make sure the life he had carved for himself was never taken again. He wasn't that boy. Not anymore.

When her final breath shuddered out, his grip loosened, cradling her weight carefully as though she were only asleep. He lowered her gently to the floor, brushing a curl of hair from her face with the same hands that had stolen her last breath.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, voice nearing into something almost reverent. "I can keep you now."

For the first time in a very long time, the silence in his head was absolute. No voices. No more noise. Just quiet. And for the first time in his life, he felt whole.

Carter sat there for a long time, Lena’s lifeless body in his arms, like a mourner at a bedside, whispering prayers no god would hear. 

 

---

The room was still. The only sound was the faint hum of the fridge and Carter’s breathing, slow and calm, as he sat on the floor with Lena in his arms. 

Her head rested against his chest, her curls spilling over his jacket like ink. He hadn’t moved for what felt like hours.

The phone lay beside him, its screen dark, but his thumb brushed over it again and again, hesitation turning to decision. 

Finally, he typed the words and hit send.

Done.

Hoffman arrived twenty minutes later. The quiet weight of footsteps was heard down the hall before the door clicked open. He stepped inside and stopped.

Carter didn’t look up. He didn’t need to. 

He knew Hoffman would come.

The older man’s eyes swept the room once, sharp and assessing. His gaze fell to Lena’s body, then to Carter’s face, unreadable in the dim light.

Carter finally lifted his eyes. There was no shame there, no guilt or remorse. Just calm. 

“You were right.”

Hoffman crossed the room, crouched down, and studied Carter like he was trying to read the pieces of him that were left. There was something different. Not hollow, not broken. Reforged. And something in his quiet serenity unsettled Hoffman more than his usual sharpness ever did. 

Carter fingers brushed over Lena’s jaw one last time before he laid her gently on the floor. He studied the detective's face for a second. 

“I've made my choice.”  

A silence stretched between them, thick with implication. Hoffman’s mind raced, weighing the possibilities. The advantage the situation offered him. 

But beneath it all, something else stirred: recognition. Loyalty, as twisted and absolute as the path they walked now together.

Finally, Hoffman stood and held out a hand. 

“Get up. We make this quick.”

Carter took it, rising to his feet. The contact fractured the moment, as though Lena had never walked back into his life. A complete stranger was now laid on the floor. Stripped of the warmth of memory.

As Hoffman helped get rid of any traces of evidence, he glanced sideways at Carter. 

“Its finally over,” Hoffman said.

Carter’s gaze didn’t waver. “I know.”

The younger man’s face was unreadable, but his eyes burned with something. And Hoffman understood more than he wanted to admit. 

The scene was staged as a break-in, neat, clean. No prints, no evidence. The phone gone. They moved with practiced silence, two shadows in perfect sync.

And when it was done, Carter looked at him, and something passed between them. A vow without words.

He had chosen.