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Fuck, don’t ask me what I’m thinking. “I can’t tell you what to do with your body, sweetheart. It isn’t up to me at all. I’m just going to help if you need it.”

“I don’t know…Do you think it’s okay not to do that?”

God, I don’t think I have ever in my life had such a primal desire like this. “It’s fine. You don’t have to do anything.”

“Okay, I’ll wait then. It’s probably not gonna happen anyway, right?”

Right. I nod. It isn’t gonna happen, Kane. Don’t try to delude yourself into thinking you deserve a family. You lost your chance at family, and your fucking privilege of having one.

Change the damn subject. “Why don’t you go ahead and show me those forums? While I’m here.”

“Oh! That’s right!” She walks over to her coffee table, grabbing her laptop and notebook and bringing it over to the island. “Um, I guess I’m a little embarrassed by it, but it has everything I collected over the last year. My notes and ideas and how I figured out your pattern,” she says awkwardly, biting her lip as she hands over the thick book.

I open it, and shit. It really does have everything. Every newspaper clipping, some printed out online news articles, and a bunch of information on each victim, including their photo. I look up at her, and she quickly stands straighter.

“What? It’s weird, right?”

“You did all this, Layla?”

“Um, yeah.” She seems embarrassed, like it’s shameful to have done all this work. But how?

When I look at her, I don’t see this wildly intelligent mastermind of an investigator. But she is exactly that… “To find me?” The question leaves my lips before I can stop myself.

“Yes. To find you.” She smiles and fuck I can’t help it. I grab the back of her head with my hand and smash my lips onto hers. It’s rough and messy, and I take her bottom lip between my teeth as I pull back. When I look back down at her, her lips are partly swollen, and her eyes slightly dazed.

“You did a really good job,” I tell her, and she smiles, and she lays her head against my upper arm.

“Thank you.”

I won’t forget how furious I am over how she physically found me…but this is just impressive. She’s brilliant. Her talent is being wasted here, in this shitty town, in her shitty apartment, stuck being an employee instead of having the resources to follow her dreams. For someone like her to have been failed by the system and left to drown on her own…

She opens the laptop and loads up whatever website this is. I’ve certainly never heard of it. “So, basically, there’s like, thousands of forums on here. It’s specifically meant for true crime, so you can follow whatever groups people have made for different cases or people. I’m in eleven different ones about The Hangman. So, each is a little different anyway, some focus on theories or facts, or just all-around discussion. Here.” She turns the screen toward me and steps back.

I sigh, pulling it forward so I can look through it. She’s not fucking kidding. There are hundreds of comments on most of these posts, and thousands of people following each group. Are people seriously that obsessed with true crime?

“I deleted everything I needed to, but there are a lot of people who are all posting their own theories too. I mean, most people love you, obviously, but there are definitely some who don’t or…maybe police check these too. I don’t know.”

Yeah, I’m sure the police are all over this shit. Which is bad, because if she’s posted before, she might already be on some list. The question is if police have any real leads. If my photo had done it, I’m sure they’d have come for me already. They wouldn’t wait me out, they’d make a big show of tracking me down and arresting me.

“So?” Her voice pulls me out of my thoughts, and I sigh.

“So, I don’t know, Layla. I’m not seeing anything terribly convincing anyone has posted, I guess. I have a lot I have to figure out.”

“About the killings? Or me?”

“Yeah, sweetheart, the killings. I don’t know…how to just stop.”

“But you want to?”

I look at her, and my answer feels obvious. Like I’m a fucking idiot for even considering that there’s anything else I could ever want besides her. But I’ve become The Hangman. I’ve dedicated my last few years embodying this role and…slowly losing myself in the process. But I didn’t give a fuck, because this is important. It was important. Suddenly I have something new to live for, really live for. I don’t have to just go through the motions and punish myself anymore.

I’m aware of the implications that come with being known as a serial killer. How many as well-known as me have actually gotten away with it? Maybe one? Two? It’s unrealistic. But I knew exactly what I was getting into. If you asked me last month, I’d say fuck it, take me to jail and throw away the key.

But now? I have Layla. I can’t disappoint her. I don’t want to disappoint her. I know damn well I don’t deserve her, but that won’t stop me from hoping that I can feel this forever. She looks at me and sees the man I always aspired to be.

“I don’t have a choice. If I don’t stop now, more shit might come out. The photo was damning enough, and now that I’ve seen those forum discussions, I don’t think I can go on. I only would have to hope no one can figure me out as easily as you did with whatever information is still up.”

She nods, looking up and around like she’s deep in thought, though she doesn’t say anything immediately. She looks down, twiddling her hands. “So…hypothetically, if I said someone may also have come to some of the same conclusions as me and…I may have accidentally said Peter Reed’s name to them…how bad would that be?”