The concept of names is in itself a riveting phenomenon.

Laughable really, how something you never choose for yourself, becomes the very crux of your identity; living on with you in the grave, even after the body meets the soil and history forgets your existence.

Death may take your life essence away, but it can never take away your name.

Some names brought people glory, others notoriety.

Tahlia's birth name however, only brought a string of frosty memories and left a repulsive, coppery taste in her mouth.

Natalia.

Her very own name, spoken in the iciest, most skin-crawling voice took her back to the decade old clutches of venom and death.

But this night wasn't about her name.

The night truly and only belonged to one that was synonymous to the final missing piece of a jigsaw;

Hidden somewhere in plain sight, yet invisible to the mundane eye.

Logan Hunt.

A name that lingered on Tahlia's mind, much longer than her sanity would like, banging on the walls of subconsciousness in attempts to escape. Not because it was, as she put it— awe-inspiringly stupid, but because it was a name Tahlia could swear she'd heard before.

But where?

She almost jumped in her seat at the sound of a sudden squeaky rustling.

She brought her hand to her chest, exhaling in multitudinous relief as she realized it was just her roommate Wynn stirring in sleep.

Stop psyching yourself out.

She glanced at the clock, looking plainly at the digits that spelt out a precise 3:33 AM.

It was quite late, quite odd for Tahlia Meyers to be up at this hour of night, especially with an 8 AM lecture early morning.

But she just couldn't fall asleep .

She'd tried her absolute best to take her mind off a certain blue eyed madman, closing her eyes forcibly in hopes of falling into peaceful slumber.

But it wasn't until after twenty minutes of restless tossing and turning, that Tahlia understood— it was not the need to fall asleep that her body desperately yearned for.

It was the need to know.

Know exactly what had landed that young man in an asylum, branded a murderer.

Yes, it was affirmative he was a killer, and yes, she had inevitably figured out some of his psychopathic inclinations.

But before this night, her brain hadn't really laid any emphasis on what that man had actually done. She was ashamed to admit it, but she hadn't yet looked into him. It was unusual for someone like her who practically finished their projects on day one, but this time things were different. An inkling of dread was stopping her from digging into it more.

Up until a few hours ago.

Up until he mentioned something along the lines of being a 'demented serial killer'.

Therefore, Tahlia sat wide awake with her Laptop screen illuminating her corner of the room, going hand in hand with the faint, but iridescent moonlight.

Her fingers typed away the letters of a certain man's name on the search bar, silently but surely hoping that nothing that bad would come up.

But then again, who said it was going to be this easy?

When the first set of results lit up her screen, Tahlia sighed in what could only be described as part relief, part annoyance. It was merely a bunch of Facebook profiles and irrelevant video clips.

And for the next ten minutes, all Tahlia could find was even more indiscernible garbage on the interweb. None that related to any kind of murders.

She clicked her tongue.

Where had she heard that name?

She amended her search to 'Westfield murder Logan Hunt', taking a quick sip of water as she scrolled.

The bottle nearly slipped out of her grasp.

You know that unexplainable feeling you get when your stomach feels like it's being twisted into knots and the air suddenly just doesn't seem to reach down your windpipe?

In a haze of big texts, only three words stood out to Tahlia.

The Westfield Ripper.

No, it can't be..

She looked at the screen with her mouth agape, breathing morphing into uneven intakes.

'After a two year long man hunt, The Westfield Ripper has been finally incarcerated, today early morning from a shack near the Bailey Jones Bridge. Identified as Logan Hunt, he had been followed by a witness to his murder of Colleen Vutowski back—'

She stopped reading.

Her insides whirled as she realized, the man she had been sitting across from a mere few hours ago, was the same man responsible for the set of bone chilling serial murders that had unnerved entire Westfield a few years ago.

That's where she knew that name from.

Seven.

Seven girls had been brutally murdered at the hands of Logan Hunt.

The thought of her subject being one of America's most infamous serial killers had never even crossed her mind. For God's sake, the man ought to have been locked in a conspiracy theory-worthy maximum security prison; not some small town mental hospital.

She wiped the ominous droplets of sweat that had formed on her forehead, even on a night this cold.

With her breath held, she began with the next few articles, delving into more details of the victims and a complete timeline of the murders.

And after thirty whole minutes of devouring every source of information on her screen, she couldn't help but notice there weren't any photos of the man himself.

Perhaps it was all a ploy to keep people from knowing that the Devil's true form wasn't a hideous horned creature.

It was temptation bottled in the form of a deathly sinful man.

She scrolled through more images— images of gruesome crime scenes, images of victims; yet not one photo was to be found of the man that would affirm his identity.

Could it be that it's a different Logan Hunt?

Her conscience laughed at how incredibly stupid she sounded. But she didn't care. It was her only solace.

Tahlia decided that she'd give herself the benefit of the doubt.

For the sake of a good night's sleep.

For the sake of her crumbling sanity.

But then, her eye caught sight of one singular picture.

It was heavily pixelated, black and white, as though taken from a shabby surveillance camera.

But even in the most abysmal of picture qualities, Tahlia couldn't simply miss the same unhinged smile which graced the killer's face, that happened to belong to the man she'd sat a few measly meters away from, only a few hours ago.

✴✴✴

"Missed me Tal?"

Tahlia didn't even see Jace sliding down on the chair across from hers. Neither did her mind register any of his words.

She was in too deep.

Hailey Santos, the third known victim of Hunt, dubbed 'The Westfield Ripper' by locals, went missing four days before her body was found in a nearby drain. The autopsy reports suggest her body went in trauma after enduring various stab wounds to the diaphragm. Her femur and multiple ribs were broken beyond-

"Tal? You listening?"

"Huh?" She gasped.

"Oh, hey Jace." She dropped her gaze down to her lap immediately.

"What are you reading?" He leaned back in his chair, picking up a fry up from her plate.

"What- oh, uh Nothing."

She took one last look at the clippings and printouts sprawled in front of her grimly, before tucking it all away into a binder swiftly.

"Just some research. How are you feeling now?"

"Apart from the the occasional throwing up? Just fucking peachy." He groaned. "It's like a hangover, except way, way, way worse."

All she could do was smile at him sympathetically.

On their very first day at the sanatorium, Jace got a bad bout of stomach infection and left early. He had no knowledge of what had happened after, for which Tahlia was, in a twisted way, thankful.

"I swear it's all because of that damn project. So I went in expecting some hot chick, about to make me her papi. But of course, Gloria Alvarez turned out to be a 76 year old woman who thought I was her dead husband and tried to kiss me." His features contorted into that of disgust, visibly cringing at the memory. "That made me sick to the stomach, after which I literally became sick to the stomach and threw up."

Tahlia felt kind of bad for chuckling, but she couldn't help it.

"What about you? Is your subject dude hot?"

Her laughter died down immediately.

Was Logan Hunt undeniably one of the most beautiful creatures Tahlia had ever laid her eyes upon?

Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes.

She could not get his bewitching eyes out of her mind.

Sickeningly beautiful.

But unfortunately, that man was a manifestation of insanity.

How could she find a ruthless killer...hot?

"No." She gritted quietly, dropping her gaze to her fidgety hands.

Her subconscious laughed.

Liar. Liar. Liar.

She cleared her throat, her eyes fixated down on her binder, "Do you feel better now?"

"I'm fine, Tal. What are you trying to hide?" He sliced through her attempts at deviating from the topic.

The next thing she knew, her chin was being forced up, her eyes meeting Jace's finally.

"Jeez Tal, you look like you haven't slept in three days."

Touché.

She turned her head away quickly, "It's nothing, I just..uh..have a lot going on, it's kinda stressing me out a bit."

"Yeah, right" He raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

A smirk then pulled at his lips, "Looks like pure little Tal is finally getting some action all night."

She picked up her last fry and threw it at him.

He dodged it, sticking out his tongue.

"Yo Montgomery, stop acting like a kid."

Both Tahlia and Jace turned their heads towards the direction of the deep voice.

Tahlia could only furrow her eyebrows in confusion as she watched Jace's mouth go from a firm line to a full blown grin as he stood up chuckling, high fiving a guy she'd never seen before, who happened to stop right in front of their table. As his bronze skin glistened angelically under the lights, her attention was captured immediately.

"Yeah well, if we stop having this conversion, she'll be the one with the kids." Jace pointed to Tahlia, to her absolute horror.

The man looked down at her.

"Hi there. "

She smiled, blurting a small hello. She couldn't help but notice how hot he was.

"Tal, meet Dean Jackson."

She gave a small nod to the guy.

"And Jax, this is Meyers. Tahlia Meyers." Jace pointed towards her.

"So this is who you've been hanging out with instead of the guys." He smiled, never taking his ebony eyes off of Tahlia.

"I can see why."

Tahlia only hoped she wasn't blushing furiously.

"You're not gonna stay?" Jace questioned.

He shrugged, getting up. "Nah man, I came looking for you. I just need to talk real quick."

Tahlia didn't miss Jace narrowing his eyes for a second, before casually shrugging, following Dean outside the café.

Tahlia's curious gaze followed both of their figures through the window.

They started off with all snickers, with what appeared to be playful banter. His eyes caught hers, and he winked at her way.

But then, what started as jokes and crosstalk, oddly evolved into them arguing about something, heavily, leaving Tahlia fazed.

The last thing she noticed was Dean storming off, leaving Jace to shout something behind him, flipping him off.

She looked at Jace with perplexed eyes as he entered the café again.

"Hey, what happened out there?"

He shrugged, "Nothing, just some chick stuff. Anyway, hope you're free this Saturday. We're going to Dean's party." He grinned, collecting his stuff. No sign of any tension.

"We?" Her eyes squinted in confusion.

"Yeah, he asked me to invite you too."

✴✴✴