Lissom fingers pattered against the wooden table in rhythms of three, bored and restless. With one hand plopped under her chin, and the other drumming away at the surface of the desk, Tahlia's gaze remained impatiently fixated on the empty little podium in the front of the class.

With over fifteen minutes past the scheduled class time, the professor wasn't here yet. That was unusual. Professor Turner put a lot of emphasis on being on time, tardiness was not something she tolerated, neither was she herself ever late for class.

But then again, there was also the fact that everything Tahlia had come to have known about her could have very well been a lie.

The past week and a half, 10 days since the little incident with Turner took place, Tahlia spent discreetly looking into her life as much as she possibly could.

Professor Lauren Evangeline Turner started her job at the University 11 years ago. In her years of being part of the faculty, she had managed to establish her position as an upstanding and indispensable asset to the board and the entire Criminology department;

Indispensable enough to persuade the administration to start making private donations to The Westerly Sanatorium For the Clinically Insane 3 years ago.

Indispensable enough to initiate a physical placement project for the department of Criminal Psychology that had never been done before, 2 years ago.

The first year, sophomore students got assigned to observe perpetrators in the County Prison.

The second year however, the new batch of sophomores were incidentally placed not only in the prison, but also the Sanatorium.

"I'm out."

An exasperated voice captured her attention. She turned to Jace to see him getting up. It wasn't just him, a bunch of students were starting to empty the hall, probably tired of waiting.

"The least she could do was send a message if she was gonna cancel class. Man, I could've slept in till 10."

He grumbled, running a hand through his light honey hair.

Tahlia furrowed her brows, "But she always sends a mail in advance. Why didn't she do it today? Isn't that...weird?"

"I don't know dude, she might be hungover. If I was a frigid bitch with a stick up my ass, I'd drink myself to sleep too." He scoffed, probably still bitter about the fact that Turner gave him a bad grade for the last project.

But Tahlia's mind wasn't at rest.

As students began leaving in hoards, Tahlia could only sit deep in sundry thoughts. It never registered that she was biting down on her nails as she let her imagination run wild.

What if she skipped town?

Or what if the FBI had caught on?

The Westfield Police had been astronomically incompetent all this while, but the Feds were not a joke.

"You coming?" She heard Jace's voice ring from a distance, finally pulling herself away from the slew of presumptions, finding him standing near the exit.

She nodded quickly and stood up, making her way over to where he was.

As they began walking, Tahlia felt a slight weight drop down on her shoulder. Her senses worked into overdrive as she jerked away from Jace flinchingly.

In one second she was brought back into that cabin. Logan was spreading her hand out on that stool, the blade of his knife glistening in his other hand. Then she was shoved into the unforgiving snow, finding the car, being dragged out of the window as the glass agonizingly cut into her back.

When she blinked, she found herself back in the hallway, and Jace with his arm half-held out in the air and a quizzical look on his face.

It hit her that Jace was merely draping his arm around her shoulder. She shook her head, breathing out wearily.

Post Traumatic Stress was an absolute bitch.

"Sorry, I-I don't know... " She trailed off, not finding a coherent way of explaining herself.

"Did I hurt you? Did I brush up against a scar or something?" The expression etched on his face was that of worry. Tahlia couldn't help but feel embarrassed and guilty.

But how was she to explain to people that some scars are not physical. Some of them live on with you deep ingrained within your conscience, even as the ones on your body heal and begin fading away.

She shook her head no quickly, biting her lip. As they resumed walking, Jace shifted to put a little distance between the two of them. Tahlia noticed, but said nothing.

"Uh, so you wanna head over to Trey's? A couple of us are going to get some dinner." Jace scratched the back of his head.

"Actually," Tahlia began, "I think I'm gonna go check something out."

She halted as they approached the end of the hallway.

"Can I borrow your car?"

With her hands steady on the steering wheel, Tahlia periodically kept reminding herself to breathe in, then out.

This wasn't a part of the plan. In fact, the entire plan itself should have gone down the dumpster when she got discharged from the hospital.

She'd told herself that part of her life was over, that she was done with her Nancy Drew fuckery for good.

She had dabbled with fire, and now her hands were burnt.

But she couldn't stay away after opening her eyes to the fact that every sign pointed to her favorite professor being a part of this. It all made sense.

Turner and Jordy were working with Logan. They planned his escape, Turner set this project up and the rest is history.

Her grip on the wheel tightened as she wondered why Turner chose her.

She clenched her jaw; why her.

Tahlia was all so buried deep under the murky weight of her thoughts, she didn't notice a black Ford Fiesta behind her taking the same turns as her from a little distance.

Once when she reached the destination, she parked the car in an empty spot and pulled the keys out. Her tawny eyes darted to the seven storeyed building right in front of her. 237 Lucille St.

She exited the car, queasy, her hands in the pockets of her trench coat as she approached the building. A little camera peeked out from over the entrance.

She checked her phone quickly, looking for Turner's apartment number. Once she found the set of numbers she was looking for, she buzzed the number on the intercom.

No one answered.

She frowned, how was she supposed to get in if no one got the door to open?

Just as the thought to going back to campus began to surface her brain, the door opened, and by some fluke of luck an old couple walked out.

This is my chance, she flashed a smile at them and wasted no time in stepping inside. With a deep exhale, she turned to the elevator and got in, pressing number 3 on the little button.

Her toes were anxiously tapping against the ground, her hands clenched into fists.

She realized she didn't really have a plan of action.

What was she to say if Turner was home?

'Hey, just dropped by to see if you hadn't become a fugitive.'

And if Tahlia's suspicions leaned on the right side of things, who was to say that Turner wouldn't attack her or take her back to Logan.

Logan.

Breathlessness rattled her chest at the thought of Logan being in her apartment.

She was positive her heart would give away if she were to see him again.

The gates of the elevator parted open and out emerged her lithe form. Swiftly finding the door that read 305, she held her breath as she began walking over to it.

She had almost knocked on the wood, when her eyes landed on the little slit of space between the edge of the door.

It was open.

"Miss Meyers."

Tahlia shrieked as a voice called out from behind her. She whipped quickly to see a familiar face standing near the elevator.

"Agent Gallagher?"

She brought a hand to her chest to compose her breathing, as the agent took small steps in her direction.

"May I ask what you're doing here?"

"I-I," A pathetic stutter left her lips as words evaded her.

As he raised a brow, she cleared her throat, reminding herself to breathe.

"I had to see my professor...To discuss something..that concerns my absence in the first month of the semester."

He eyed her skeptically, "And that couldn't wait till class?"

"It was urgent and she didn't make it to class today. So I thought I'd come see her," She then motioned towards the door, "But I saw the door was open."

It was the last sentence that caught Gallagher's attention. His gaze jumped from her towards the door. A crease formed in his forehead, "Stand back," He whispered to Tahlia as he reached for the gun in his holster.

Pointing it up, he pushed the gate open gently. He entered, cautious. He asked Tahlia for Turner's name.

"FBI! Miss Turner are you in here?"

Tahlia gulped. Her eyes kept darting all around the place, on the lookout for a particular blue eyed man.

The gun is faster than a knife.

The gun is faster than a knife.

She kept repeating the same phrase over and over again in her head like a mantra.

Gallagher first advanced towards the kitchen, making sure it was clear.

Then he prowled into the first room, doing a quick scan before stepping away to check the other rooms out.

Tahlia didn't follow him, instead, she entered the room.

It was her bedroom, a minimalistic space with light walls and white sheets. Some decor, and her framed degrees hanging on the walls.

Tahlia was about to leave to catch up with Agent Gallagher, when something caught her eye.

Everything in the room was in it's place, except the small wooden desk by her bed. Out of it's 4 drawers, 1 was haphazardly open and the one below it had a key sticking out of the lock.

The opened chest was completely empty.

But it wasn't that which captured Tahlia's attention; It was the fact that none of the drawers had locks built into them except the one on the very bottom.

Careful to wrap her hand around her sweater to prevent finger prints, she twisted the key. The lock came undone, and she pulled it open.

Her brows knitted puzzledly as she looked at the contents— Envelopes and what appeared to be a big scrapbook.

She took the scrapbook in her hands, turning the front page open.

On the first page there were photos of Ted Bundy. It didn't alarm Tahlia too much though, Turner was a Criminal Psychologist, of course she'd have collected information about murderers.

It was the second page that made the hair on Tahlia's neck stand up.

At first Tahlia thought it was a diary entry, but only as she read the first few lines, she realized it was more like a letter...to Ted Bundy. Her face twisted, but she read on.

Tahlia's eyes went wide as the situation pieced itself together. The letter was more like a sexual fantasy, where Turner was describing herself and Bundy in painful detail. She quickly flipped the page, only for her jaw to go slack.

There were sketches. Sketches of her and Bundy in compromising positions.

Flipping the page in an onslaught of horror, she found herself on the next leaf with photos of Jeffrey Dahmer. Then another page filled with penned details about a fantasy involving her and Dahmer. Then sketches.

The pattern kept repeating itself as Tahlia found Richard Ramirez, Paul John Knowles and other killers in her little scrapbook.

Tahlia was sure she could taste some bile on her tongue at this point.

All of a sudden, a rotten stench wafted to her nose.

Her palms flew to her nose out of instinct and she turned to glance at the door. She could hear Agent Gallagher's voice, composed but robotic.

She placed the scrapbook down on the bed as she walked out of the room, down the the hall into the other room of the house.

"I need backup on 237 Lucille Street."

Gallagher was speaking on his phone, standing at the door, his back blocking her view of inside the room.

She got close, her movements small.

Something wasn't right.

And when Tahlia got close enough, finally getting a peek inside the room;

Suddenly she wished she hadn't.

Her stomach lurched and she fell on her knees then and there. The contents of her breakfast were agonizingly emptied out onto the granite flooring.

There was an awful, shrill ringing in her ears. Her vision was hazing together.

She was losing all sense of being.

But all throughout, one image remained etched in front of her eyes—

The one of a body burnt to a grisly charred crisp, lying on the floor, while an unscathed but decapitated head of Lauren Evangeline Turner lay next to it.

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