Chapter Text
The river had been entirely dry for weeks, for the first time in years. Maybe ever, though it was a flood outlet. The bed cracked open like skin, the stones white and bone-sharp beneath the sun. Hunger ran through the town like a fever. The men said it was a punishment. His father said it was a sign.
Will’s hands rested on the worn railing at the edge of the tiny dock, steady but still shaking. He was older now, stronger, but the heat, the dust, and the fear made his stomach churn. The lamb lay on the wood at the edge, bound and trembling. Its leg was twisted. Flies already swarmed the small wound there.
It wasn’t a grand ritual. No fire, no holy song. Just men waiting, men starving, men praying for God to look their way before they themselves fell apart. The air smelled of dirt, sweat, and iron.
The heat shimmered. His father’s voice came low, reverent:
“The river’s been dry too long. He won’t come to an empty table, to the unfaithful. He needs to see we remember. We know how to suffer and how to offer it.”
The others murmured in agreement. One of them pressed a hand to the animal’s flank. Another drew a knife and traced its edge against his own palm. Blood beaded, fell to the dirt, and dried before it reached the ground.
His father lifted the blade toward the lamb, hovering, watching. Will, no longer a child but not yet a man, sensed the quiet cruelty. The same cruelty in his eyes every time he punished Will.
He made shallow cuts. They were deliberate, slow, as he watched the lamb strain and shudder.
“Endurance is faith,” he said. “Pain is proof. May the Lord accept our offering and bring the rain back.”
The air was thick with its bleating, sharp and human in its pitch. Will couldn’t move. The men’s eyes glinted, fevered, turned upward as if waiting for light to split the sky. But nothing came. Only the sound of the lamb choking on its own voice.
When his father turned to speak to one of the men, Will stepped forward. He took the knife his father had left behind. It was lighter than he expected, the handle familiar under his fingers. He drove it down between the ribs, once, cleanly. The body jerked, then stilled.
For a heartbeat, the world felt holy. Still. The air itself seemed to bow. Dust swirled in the shafts of light, silence settled over the barn like a benediction. He could almost hear the dry earth cracking beneath them, thirsty for life it demanded to take.
Then the silence broke. His father’s hand struck him across the face.
“This isn’t a joke, boy. You took what was His,” he hissed. “That was for the Lord’s eyes.”
Blood ran from the corner of Will’s mouth as several more blows landed. His blood dripped down, mixing with the lamb’s as it soaked into the wood and dust under him, disappearing faster than it should have, the ground thirsty. He looked down at it and felt a heat rise in his chest. Not shame, not fear. Something else. Something bright and terrible.
Then, suddenly, miraculously, thunder crashed overhead. The first fat drops of rain fell. The entire congregation looked up to the sky, before their eyes fell to Will. Hungry. Disbelieving. Awed.
Even his father, a man of unending words, was speechless in the face of the rain and blood now dripping into the dirt.
He didn’t know what it meant yet. Only that something had opened, and it would never close again.
Red light flashed, bathing the world in blood.
Silence. No, ringing. A high, endless echo looping inside his skull until he thought he’d go mad.
Air hissed in and out of his lungs. Blood ran down his face, warm and sticky. Trembling hands, trembling legs. His eyes could only see one thing: Hobbs. Dead. He killed him.
He had to. He had no choice. Right?
The gun felt impossibly heavy in his hand. Heavy on his conscience. Blood pooled beneath him, seeping into the cracks of the wooden floor. A red mirror, reflecting the horrible, beautiful truth: Will was a killer.
Muffled footsteps somewhere beyond him. Voices, but the ringing never stopped, folding in on itself like some infernal bell.
A hand touched his shoulder. God’s hand. Striking him down. He jolted, slammed against the wall, tumbled to the floor. He had to. He had no choice.
The air smelled of iron and gunpowder.
More than one voice now. Still muffled, arguing somewhere just beyond comprehension. A warm hand hovered over his arm. “Will,” the voice said, calm, patient. Human. Not the voice of God, not the chiming bell in his skull.
Hobbs’ face still twisted into that manic grin, forever locked in the cold grip of death. See? it hissed in Will’s mind.
The hand pressed against his arm. He wanted to recoil, but it was insistent. He was pulled to his feet even as his legs shook and his vision wavered. The world outside the room felt distant, blurred, as if he were watching through a haze of smoke and blood. Footsteps on the floorboards, careful, deliberate. A coat brushed his shoulder.
“Breathe,” the voice murmured. The words were almost absurd in their quiet calm. He still obeyed.
He followed, stumbling at first, then more steadily, as the figure led him to a car and carefully settled him inside. Quiet streets stretched outward, still echoing the horror of what he’d done. Shadows painted the too-bright world around him. His head throbbed, his eyes ached, his throat burned with unearthed screams.
He blinked and found himself standing before a very real door. Inside, the room smelled faintly of clean linen and cedar. Another blink, and he was sitting on the bed, the weight of the gun in his coat pocket, the memory of Hobbs burning behind his eyes.
The figure stood over him, hands folded, patient. Not threatening. Safe. Or, almost.
He didn’t know if he’d ever actually be safe again. Not from himself.
Hannibal left the room. He knew now it was Hannibal moving around him, guiding him. He heard him moving about outside the door, saw him passing by in the corner of his eye. But he couldn’t bring himself to really pay any attention to it. Not when the gunshot lingered in his ears, the blood behind his eyes, the horror of how right it all was in his gut.
And then it came, too softly: a voice from a long, terrible history.
“You see what they cannot, Will. You see what they dare not. You know what must be done. And one day, you will be called to finish it.”
It wasn’t here, not really, but it wrapped around him anyway, memory suffocating. The dry heat, the sun on his back, the trembling lamb, the knife in his hands, the thrill of ending its suffering, they all rushed back at once. And for a heartbeat, the clarity of that choice, that power, struck him again.
Somewhere, deep inside, he felt it: the pull. Not fear, not guilt, not shame, but something else. Something—
“Will?” Hannibal’s voice startled him out of the near-nightmare he’d found himself in. He jumped and for the first time since what happened he looked at him.
Hannibal was watching him, head tilted slightly. Concern painted across his aristocratic features. Yet Will felt something underneath. Interest, approval maybe, but no worry. Like he was studying an experiment that was going his way.
That impression fled as quickly as it arrived. Hannibal was offering him a hand, care written all over his face. Despite himself, he took it and allowed Hannibal to help him up.
“You must eat. You have been through a shock. Your body needs tending.”
Hannibal’s voice, soft and careful, broke through the static of his thoughts. He nodded. Hannibal was right, actually, and he was already here, already offering. Will couldn’t muster the usual defenses, the sarcasm or suspicion. He was tired. Tired and full of things he didn’t dare name.
Hannibal led him to a small table, pulled out a chair for him, and tucked him in with deliberate gentleness. When Hannibal set a bowl of steaming, fragrant soup in front of him, he nearly gagged.
“I can’t,” he whispered, meeting Hannibal’s gaze with something close to pleading.
Hannibal looked down at him from where he was still standing, assessing. “Self-punishment won’t do you any good, Will.”
Finally, finally, his turbulent emotions broke through the numb veneer. His eyes burned, his mouth twisted in disgust, his hand tore at his hair.
“I killed him.”
Hannibal caught the hand mid-motion, pried it gently away, and replaced it with his own, fingers smoothing through Will’s hair with quiet precision.
“You stopped a killer,” he murmured. “One who would not have stopped on his own.”
The touch trailed down his scalp, too intimate, too tender. And yet Will leaned into it before he could stop himself. Hannibal’s hand rewarded the movement with another slow stroke.
“Does it matter?” Will rasped. “I killed a man. His blood—” he choked “--was on my hands. If that girl was his daughter, she’s fatherless now.”
“He was holding a knife to her throat. She would be dead now if you had not acted. Perhaps you can make up for taking him from her, but nothing could have been done if you had hesitated.”
Will sagged in his chair, his tears dripping down his cheeks despite his best attempts to keep them locked away.
“You’re right. Of course you are,” he whispered.
But even as he said it, he knew it didn’t matter. He had killed. And his worst fear had come true. It was just as powerful as he remembered. The rush. The control. The ownership of another life.
Hannibal’s hand left his hair, settling on his shoulder. His gaze was steady, piercing, as if it saw through skin and bone and straight into the marrow of Will’s thoughts. Saw the darkness and didn’t turn away.
Will swallowed around the lump in his throat.
“Eat, Will. You will need your strength when we see to the girl’s wellbeing.”
He withdrew his hand, crossed to the opposite chair, and sat. Watching.
Will lifted the spoon. The first bite was salt and warmth and ash. When he finally swallowed, Hannibal smiled slowly, satisfied.
Will knew, instinctively, that something had ended. The game of hide-and-seek he’d played with Hannibal was over. The man saw him now.
Only time would tell what that truly meant.
He slept, if it could be called that. Every time his eyes closed, he was back in the house, Hobbs’ blood bright and endless. Sometimes he heard the shot before he fired it; sometimes he didn’t. When morning came, Hannibal was there with coffee and the same patient calm as before, speaking softly through the fog in Will’s mind. He guided him through the day’s necessities, the paperwork, the silence.
The world moved without him.
By the time they reached the hospital, the halls smelled of antiseptic. Everything was too white, too bright. The sound of footsteps, beeping monitors, and whispered voices pressed against his skull like static.
Hannibal’s hand rested at his back, steadying.
Abigail Hobbs was alive. Though barely, if her pale, sallow skin and dark circles under her shut eyes meant anything.
“What’s wrong with her? She seemed fine yesterday.” His voice came out panicked. Hannibal met him with calm and Will could feel himself unconsciously mirroring him.
“She is sedated. She was going into shock yesterday and it was the best thing for her at the time. She will be coming out of it soon.”
Hannibal opened the door for Will, who hesitated at the threshold. Was this what was best for her? After everything?
One glance at Hannibal’s face, too close as they were sharing the warmth of the doorway, he saw the calm, the certainty, the assuredness there and he borrowed some of that strength. He could do this. Abigail was hurt. Her life was changed forever. The least he could do was give her some closure.
He stepped into the room that was too still, too clinical as her heartbeat kept time on the machine. Hannibal followed, sitting in the chair nearest her bed and holding her hand. Hannibal’s action gave Will the last push he needed to step to the side of her bed and wait.
Abigail stirred before she woke. There was a small twitch of her fingers in Hannibal’s hand, a flicker behind her eyelids. When her eyes opened, they were unfocused, searching the ceiling first, then turning toward the sound of his breathing.
“Dad?” Her voice was hoarse, uncertain.
Will froze. His throat tightened around words that didn’t belong to him.
Hannibal leaned forward slightly, his tone perfectly calm. “No, Abigail. Your father isn’t here.”
Her gaze shifted to Will. For a moment, she didn’t seem to understand what she was seeing. Then he watched it all flash across her face: the blood, the gun, the noise in her head. “You were there,” she whispered. “You stopped him.”
Will swallowed hard. “I did.”
Abigail blinked slowly, tears gathering without falling. “He said we were going away. Someone was looking for us. He said that we’d be safe in the woods. Then Daddy made me sit at the table and–” she said slowly.
Will’s jaw tightened. “He shouldn’t have done what he did, Abigail.”
She looked away, toward the IV in her arm. “Was Daddy a bad man?”
“Do you think he was bad?” Hannibal asked.
She blinked. “I helped him clean sometimes. There was blood on the floor.” Her voice was fading, softer and smaller, like she might disappear into the sheets if she spoke too much. “He said it was okay. That they were already gone. We weren’t doing anything bad. I wasn’t bad.”
Will’s stomach turned. He wanted to look at Hannibal, to see if he would say something to stop this. Anything. But Hannibal only sat still, hand still wrapped around hers, expression unreadable.
“You did what he told you,” Will said. “That doesn’t make you like him. You’re not bad.”
Abigail looked up again, meeting his eyes. “Do you do what people tell you?”
The words landed like a punch. She didn’t mean them as accusation, not really, just a child’s unfiltered honesty. But Hannibal’s gaze shifted toward Will then, deliberate.
Will drew a careful breath. “Not always.”
Abigail nodded, eyes half-closing again. “You look tired,” she murmured. “Like him.”
“Like who?”
But she was already fading back into sedation, her lips forming a soundless word before her breathing steadied. There was no way to be certain, but the word Dad echoed in his head.
He stepped back from the bed, feeling hollow. Hannibal’s voice followed him softly, close enough that it brushed the edge of his composure.
“She’ll remember more when she’s ready. For now, it is enough that she saw kindness when she woke.”
When they left the room, Will didn’t speak. The hallway felt colder now, narrower, as if the walls had been waiting to close in. His pulse was still caught somewhere in that last look Abigail gave him, half-asleep, half-searching, as though she expected him to tell her who she was supposed to be now.
Hannibal fell into step beside him, his gait unhurried. “You did well,” he said quietly.
Will shook his head. “She doesn’t even know what’s real. She thinks she helped him.”
“She did help him,” Hannibal replied, almost gently. “But unknowingly. The sins of the father do not transfer to the child.” A pause. “Nor to the one who ended the father’s life.”
Will stopped walking. “That’s not what it feels like.”
“Because you still believe guilt is a form of penance,” Hannibal said. “It isn’t. It’s indulgence.” His eyes lingered on Will’s face. “You mistake empathy for obligation.”
Will exhaled through his nose, trying to steady himself. “She asked if I do what people tell me.”
Something flickered behind Hannibal’s gaze, gone too quickly to name. “And do you?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
“Good.” Hannibal’s tone was soft enough to pass for kindness, but there was weight beneath it. “Doubt is the beginning of freedom.”
They resumed walking, Will’s footsteps too fast, Hannibal’s too calm. As they passed the nurses’ station, a woman’s laughter cut through the quiet, brightly, ordinarily human. It jarred Will, reminded him of everything that wasn’t blood and guilt and ghosts. For a moment, he almost envied it.
At the elevator, Hannibal pressed the button and studied Will’s reflection in the brushed metal doors. “You see yourself in her,” he said. “That is natural.”
“She’s a kid.”
“She is what remains,” Hannibal said, almost to himself. “Of him. Of what he taught.” He turned slightly, voice lowering. “You want to save her. Perhaps you already have.”
The elevator opened with a muted chime. Will stepped in, but Hannibal didn’t follow immediately. He waited, watching him as though memorizing the distance between them.
“She’ll need someone who understands her,” Hannibal said, letting the doors begin to close. “Someone who can help her see that she is not ruined. That she is not what her father did or preached.”
The metal sealed the words in with him, quiet and close. Will stared at his own dim reflection, at the faint tremor in his hands. When he finally looked up, his own eyes seemed strange to him; tired, yes, but something else too. Darkness, a mirror.
The drive back was quiet. Too quiet. The kind that made the world seem like it was holding its breath. Hannibal had offered to take him home, but Will refused. Home didn’t sound real right now. Instead, he let Jack’s call pull him forward. Just a few questions, standard procedure. The kind of thing they all did when one of their own pulled the trigger.
He told himself it was fine. Routine. But as he stepped into the Bureau’s walls, he felt the shift. The hum of conversation dipped when he passed; someone’s eyes lingered a moment too long. The smell of burnt coffee and printer ink. All the little things that made the place feel ordinary now made his skin crawl.
The conference room was colder than he remembered. No two-way mirror, no handcuffs, just the long metal table, the faint hum of the lights, and Jack behind a folder that looked heavier than it should’ve.
“Take a seat,” Jack said. His tone was calm, clipped, like he was keeping it that way for Will’s sake.
Will sat. The chair creaked. The sound felt too loud. Jack didn’t look up immediately. “You understand why we have to do this.”
“You want to make sure I didn’t enjoy it,” he said, disgust with himself and the situation bitter on his tongue.
Jack’s eyes flicked up, sharp. “You think I’m asking that?”
“I think you’re wondering it,” Will said. His hands tightened against his knees. “You saw what he nearly did to his daughter. Hannibal told you himself. Yet here we are.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.” Jack leaned forward, elbows on the table, voice low. “Walk me through it again. From when you went through the door.”
The words landed like weights. He started to answer, but the air in the room thickened. The sterile hum faded into the echo of Hobbs’ voice, the slick sound of the blade, the spatter of blood. It wasn’t memory anymore. It was contagion.
“Will.” Jack’s tone snapped him back. “You froze up there.”
“I’m fine.” His voice was sharp now. “He had the knife to her throat. I—” He stopped himself, breath shaking. “I pulled the trigger.”
Jack studied him, searching for something, maybe remorse, clarity, fear, anything that made sense. “You’re sure he didn’t say anything before he went for her?”
Will blinked, eyes unfocused. “He said—” The words snagged. “He said that he knew I would come.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I think he wanted me to understand him. Maybe even wanted me to shoot him.”
Jack’s silence was its own verdict. The room suddenly felt too small. The hum of the lights too loud. The space between them, too wide.
When the questioning ended, Will wasn’t sure what he’d said or what he’d left out. The paperwork would say “justified shooting.” But the look in Jack’s eyes, cautious, assessing, said something else.
Despite it all, Jack handed him a thick file before he was dismissed. His eyes widened. Hobbs’ file.
“Why?”
“To look it over. To tie up loose ends.” He waved his hand at him dismissively.
“But I was involved in a shooting. I can’t be on the case yet.”
Jack shot him a pointed look. “Nothing about this situation is normal, Will.” He heard what Jack didn’t say: nothing about you is normal, Will.
He stepped back into the hall and felt the distance settle in. Not punishment. Just the quiet, careful kind of alienation that precedes it.
The corridor outside the conference room was too bright. The kind of sterile fluorescence that made every face look drained. Will leaned against the wall, rubbing the heel of his hand against his eyes until the afterimage of Hobbs’ kitchen bled away. He told himself it was over, that the questions were done, but the sound of Jack’s voice turning him into evidence lingered anyway.
He didn’t notice Beverly until she was right there, a paper cup in her hand. “You look like you could use this more than I can,” she said, offering it out.
He blinked. “What is it?”
“Coffee,” she said, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Or close enough.”
That earned half a smile, thin but real. He took the cup and tried a sip. Lukewarm. Bitter. Comforting in its way.
“You been in with Jack long?” she asked.
“Long enough,” he said.
“Word’s already out,” she went on, crossing her arms. “Everybody’s doing that thing. You know, whispering like you shot a puppy instead of a serial killer.”
“Feels about the same,” he said before he could stop himself.
Beverly’s eyes softened. “I’m not saying they’re right. You did what you had to. Nobody who knows the situation is judging you for pulling the trigger.” Her tone said she knew that wasn’t true, but she was giving him something to hold onto anyway.
He looked down into the coffee, watching it ripple faintly. “I keep seeing it.”
“Yeah.” She leaned against the wall beside him. “That’s part of the job we never talk about. The feelings after. But you don’t have to keep throwing yourself at it, you know. Take a break. Breathe. Let somebody else pick up the next one.”
“I can’t.” The words came fast, automatic. “If I stop, I’ll be alone with the monsters in my head.”
Something in his voice made her glance at him sideways. The humor was gone now, replaced by something more cautious. “Just…don’t let this place eat you alive, okay? There are people here who actually give a damn about you.”
He nodded, though he didn’t quite believe it. “Thanks, Bev.”
She pushed off the wall, giving his shoulder a quick, friendly tap. “Don’t make me regret saying nice things to you.”
He almost laughed. Almost. As she walked away, the sound of her footsteps faded under the low hum of the Bureau. For a fleeting moment, the world felt a little less heavy.
That’s when he saw Hannibal waiting by the glass doors, immaculate as ever, hands clasped behind his back, as if he’d been there the whole time. The moment of lightness vanished like breath in winter.
Hannibal’s eyes found him immediately. No surprise there. He inclined his head in greeting, the faintest smile touching his lips. “Will.”
“Doctor Lecter,” Will answered, tone careful, wary of how formal it sounded even to his own ears.
“I thought perhaps you might like some air,” Hannibal said, gesturing toward the exit. “Hospitals and federal buildings alike have a way of feeling sterile. Oppressive.”
Will hesitated. He could still hear Beverly’s voice in his head. Don’t let this place eat you alive. But there was something reassuring in Hannibal’s tone, something grounding. He followed.
Outside, the afternoon light was thin and gray. The kind of light that made everything look washed out. The breeze carried the smell of rain on asphalt. Hannibal matched his stride easily, patient, as though they were merely colleagues finishing the day.
“I spoke with Jack,” Hannibal said after a long silence. “He seemed satisfied with your account of the shooting.”
“‘Satisfied’ isn’t the word I’d use,” Will muttered.
“Then perhaps the word is ‘reassured,’” Hannibal countered mildly. “He is a man who understands necessity, even when he pretends he does not.”
Will gave a quiet, bitter laugh. “Funny. I was hoping I could stop understanding necessity for a while.”
Hannibal looked at him then. His expression was soft, sympathetic, but behind his eyes there was a flicker of interest. “And yet you cannot. Because you see too much. You feel too deeply. A gift that spares no one.”
Will stopped walking. The words landed with quiet precision, cutting through what was left of his composure. Hannibal waited, unbothered by the silence that followed.
“I talked to Beverly,” Will said finally, almost defensively.
“Ah.” Hannibal’s tone was unreadable, but the smallest curve of his mouth betrayed something. Amusement, perhaps, or curiosity. “She seems fond of you.”
“She’s trying to help.”
“As she should. Still—” Hannibal tilted his head slightly, studying him. “There are kinds of understanding she will never reach. You frighten her, even if she wishes you didn’t. You frighten them all, Will.”
Will didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The wind picked up, carrying the smell of ozone and wet leaves.
“Come,” Hannibal said finally, gentle again. “Let me take you home. You’ve done enough for one day.”
Will hesitated, but when Hannibal placed a steadying hand at the small of his back, just as he had the night before, he didn’t resist. He let himself be guided toward the car, toward the illusion of safety waiting there.
Hannibal dropped him off with an expression somewhere between concern and calculation, though Will wasn’t sure he could tell the difference anymore. Will had spent the entire drive in silent, heavy contemplation, thoughts looping and tightening like wire. He waved Hannibal goodbye and nodded at the promise they would see each other soon. Only when he stepped into his cold motel room did the shock begin to wash over him again, slow and numbing.
Hannibal was the only reason he’d been able to function since the shooting. He was certain of that. Without him, Will would have shattered entirely, speechless, paralyzed, broken open by what he’d done. Even with Hannibal’s steady presence, he shouldn’t be this composed. Not by a long shot. But it wasn’t just the gentleness, the careful words, the precise questions.
It was the understanding. Bone-deep, instinctive, implicit.
Hannibal knew why Will was unraveling. Knew the shape of the panic, the shadow behind the horror. No one else did. Will was starting to suspect no one else could.
As unsettling as it was to have someone press at the foundations of his carefully constructed mask, it was also…relief. To be seen. To be known. To not be condemned for either.
Hannibal knew he had enjoyed killing Hobbs. Knew that the sight of blood spattering that cursed dining room had soothed something inside him that had long been restless. Knew that some nauseating, terrible stillness had finally settled in place. Knew that Will had been raised in circumstances unforgivable, and that Will had done things unforgivable.
And Hannibal only drew closer.
Will couldn’t bring himself to push him away anymore, not after tasting even a sliver of acceptance, camaraderie, something that eased the ache in his ribs where loneliness had lived for years. A small, treacherous part of him even wondered whether Hannibal would stay if he knew everything. If he knew what Will had run from. What still chased him.
But that question was one he would never voice.
He was worse than anyone suspected. He had done more, and worse, than anyone could ever guess. No one could ever know.
He forced himself to focus on something else. Something concrete. Something he could control.
He still had the file on Hobbs. He’d start there.
He sat on the small, lumpy bed and spread the pages out across the thin blanket: Hobbs’ file, the case file, photographs, reports. After what he’d walked into, it was obvious Hobbs had probably been responsible for the earlier murders. But what was his motive? Why try to kill his daughter? Why wait for law enforcement like he’d been expecting them?
Hobbs had been restoring a historic building. One of several projects noted in the permits. The paint found on one of the earlier victims traced back to one of those sites. Will flipped through the thin documentation: purchase records, county filings, a sparse project description.
A church. In—
No. No.
But the letters didn’t change when he blinked.
Marrow Creek.
The name hit him like a physical blow.
Images burst across his mind unbidden, merciless. The pews he used to hide beneath. The rafters where dust settled like ash. The muddy river, sluggish and dark. Screams. Heat. Smoke choking his lungs. Fire too close. The weight of a knife. The slickness of—
His breath hitched.
Coincidence. It had to be coincidence. Except it didn’t feel like one. Not when the murders were religious. Ritual. Doctrinal. Echoing sermons he could still hear in the locked chambers of memory.
He had to know.
So he did something he had refused to do for decades: he searched for news articles. He clicked. He read.
Photographs of the desolate town filled his screen. Most of the articles claimed a freak accident and a tragedy too devastating for a town that small to recover from. Others hinted at whispers: a cult, a ritual gone wrong, a promise of rebirth twisted into ruin. Some spoke of a leader murmuring about immortality, others about burning homes in offering.
The truth lay somewhere in the cracks between those stories.
Will shuddered through every word. He forced his memories down, wedging them deep where they could claw less viciously. He couldn’t let them surface. Not now.
The town was gone. Abandoned. Forgotten. There should have been no one left alive who cared enough to dig it up again.
But Hobbs knew. He cared.
He had been waiting for law enforcement. Or for Will. Like the darkness had recognized him. Like it had always recognized him.
The darkness had found him again.
Will squeezed his eyes shut.
“It never left you, boy. It’s in your eyes, your hands, your blood.” His father’s voice, rough, familiar, a rasp carved out of old sermons, cut through the room.
Will’s eyes flew open. No ghost stood there. Only the sick yellow glow of the motel lamp, and the stark white screen of his laptop. Until the photos began to blur, spin, black and white bleeding outward until the entire room dimmed beneath it.
“You refused the gift, but your refusal was sacrament all the same. We all shared it. Violence. Death.”
Will shook his head hard, but the vision swallowed him whole.
His hand gripped a knife, pressing it to the delicate skin of a neck. Like the lamb all over again but worse. God, worse. Because now he knew how much he liked it. Knew that pleasure had bloomed even through the terror. It didn’t matter that it was this or punishment. This was his rite. His offering. If he didn’t go through with it, they would gut him instead.
And then Hell broke loose.
Blood. Screaming. The crush of bodies. The roar of flame. And the single choice that damned everything: he walked away when he could have tried to help. And once he realized what he’d done, he ran.
He had never really stopped.
The altar in front of him warped, stretched, became a kitchen table. Hobbs stood beside it, smiling like he knew every secret Will had ever failed to bury. “See?” he whispered.
The name card at the table’s head, Will’s name scrawled across it, burst into flames.
Will fell backward, hitting the floor hard. A jolt of pain lanced up his spine. He gasped, wiping sweat from his forehead. Not real. Not real. He was in his motel room. He’d been looking at articles. He was safe.
Except…he could still feel the eyes.
Watching. Waiting. Knowing.
Someone had seen him. Someone who knew the truth about Marrow Creek. About his past. About what he was.
And Will had the sinking, certain feeling that this time, he couldn’t outrun it.
Sleep never found him that night. Instead, dread and horror took turns drowning him under their suffocating weights. Every noise in the walls or across the parking lot made him jump; every passing headlight slicing through the window had him bracing for the worst.
By morning he was exhausted, afraid, and furious. Furious at Jack Crawford, furious at the FBI, and, most of all, furious at himself. Why couldn’t he keep out of it?
His fury would have no time to fade. Jack called, asking him to meet at the Hobbs house to go over the crime scene. No rest for the wicked.
Will swallowed the resentment and caught a cab. If he trembled as it rolled up to the curb, no one was there to see.
He climbed out and dragged himself down the sidewalk, unable to fully look at the brick, the wood, the glass; the place where everything had cracked open. He forced himself through several deep breaths and shoved his emotions down into the tight, locked space behind his ribs. He would stay in control.
Past the crime scene tape, he hovered at the front door. Eyes fixed on the floorboards, determined not to look at the rooms where it had all happened. If he did, the floodgate would give way. He had opened something here, and he couldn’t let it loose again.
“Will, that you? Come join us in the kitchen,” Jack’s voice boomed through the house.
Will sucked in a shaky breath and tapped his fingers against his thigh. He could do this. He would do this.
Each step felt weighted, every footfall echoing with what had happened here, even as he kept his eyes down. When he reached the threshold of the kitchen and dining area, he stopped.
Movement flickered at the edge of his vision. Hobbs’ ghost? He froze, but it was only Jack’s voice filling the room a heartbeat later.
“Will, we were looking over Hobbs’ file and came across some things we were hoping you might have insight into.”
Something in him iced over. He nodded, throat too tight to speak.
He sensed Jack move around him toward the kitchen entrance. Subtle, but deliberate. Blocking the way out.
“It says the restoration project Hobbs worked on was a church in…what was it? Marrow Creek. Supposedly a ghost town now. Mostly burned to the ground during a bad dry spell. No flooding to fill the little bayou outlet there.”
Cold washed over him. Will’s gaze darted to the doors, the hallway, mentally mapping escape routes. If he could get into a bedroom, he could pry a window–
“Most of the town died in the chapel,” Jack continued. “The fire burned so hot and fast there was almost nothing left.” His voice turned contemplative. “There were whispers about cult activity. Even human sacrifice.” He let the words linger. Will’s heart clenched. Black dots crept at the edges of his vision. “Of course, nothing was ever proven.”
Jack’s presence pressed in, suffocating. Will needed out. Now.
“Anyway,” Jack added, gesturing at the space around them, “after the incident the other day, we ran a routine background check. Standard procedure after a shooting. And we found something interesting.”
Will forced down what little air he could and finally looked at Jack. “Look, Jack–”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Jack demanded. “You grew up in New Orleans. Why hide that when you knew we were coming here?”
Confusion cut through the panic. New Orleans?
Jack sighed. “More importantly, since you grew up nearby, around the same time Marrow Creek burned, did you ever hear anything? Rumors about what happened? Anything that could add context to Hobbs’ involvement? Could it connect to his murders?”
So that was it. He was being grilled about rumors. Not his own memories.
He opened his mouth but another voice filled the room.
“Will!”
He barely had time to register it before someone pulled him into a warm, familiar hug. Cinnamon and apples. Strong arms. Alana.
“What are…Alana, why are you here?”
“I flew in as soon as I heard. I’m so sorry.”
Her blue eyes did that thing he hated, assessing him while still looking pity-soft. Like she was cataloguing all the ways he was broken.
“The dogs?”
“I found a great sitter. She’s watching them and the house for a while.” She gave him a sad smile, then turned slowly to Jack. Her expression sharpened into steel. “And you. Why would you bring Will here so soon after what happened?”
Jack half-shrugged, resigned. Alana was a force of nature even when she was happy.
“We had some things to talk about.”
“And by ‘talk about,’” she snapped, “you mean interrogate. In the place where he shot someone. Jack, this is beyond inappropriate.”
“I’m doing what I have to for answers, Dr. Bloom. You don’t work for the FBI. You have no authority here.”
That only fanned her fury. She crossed her arms. “No? Then you won’t mind if I report everything you’re doing to the FBI’s ethics committee. Or better yet, Kade Prurnell.”
Whoever that was, it hit its mark. Jack’s posture sank.
He shot Will a hard look. “We’re not done. Take the rest of the day, but tomorrow we’re driving to Marrow Creek. I want to see that restoration site. Maybe it’ll jog something loose.”
Alana clearly hated the idea, but she turned to Will with a gentler expression. “I need to speak with Jack. Do you have a ride back to where you’re staying?”
Part of him bristled at her savior complex, at the way she made choices for him, but this time he wouldn’t push back. Not if it got him out of this house.
He definitely didn’t have a ride. He’d have to call another cab and watch his wallet bleed.
“I can drive him home,” a soft voice said, stepping out of nowhere.
Matthew. Of course.
“Wonderful. Thank you, Detective,” Alana said warmly.
Will nearly rolled his eyes. Again she assumed consent. No room for him to say no.
He stared at Matthew for a long moment, then walked out.
Matthew trailed behind him like a loyal pup. Outside, Will finally turned, the anger that had been stifled by Jack’s interrogation now returning full force.
“What do you want, Matthew? Why do you keep approaching me?”
To Will’s surprise and irritation Matthew looked delighted by the fire in his voice. He smiled, honest and bright.
“I wanted to talk. Like we used to.”
“Why?” Will asked, muscles coiled.
Matthew’s gaze swept down Will’s face with a hunger that made something uncomfortable twist in Will’s chest.
“I care about you,” he said simply. “I never stopped looking for you. No one else understands what happened back then. Not who I am. Not like you. And I see you too, Will. I always have. I just want…” He faltered, searching for the right words. “I just want to be close to you.”
Matthew’s loneliness loomed like a thick, heavy shadow. Will could almost taste it, feel it crawling into his bloodstream. Too close. Way too close.
He shut his eyes and pulled himself back into himself. When he was sure he was no longer bleeding into Matthew’s emotions, he sighed.
“You shouldn’t look for that with me,” he said quietly. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“I know you, Will.” Matthew’s voice softened further, impossibly gentle. “You took care of me. You protected me. And that day—” His eyes darkened with something like awe. “That day I saw who you really were. Righteous. Angry. Beautiful. Like an angel sent to cull the unfaithful. Like a wrathful god.”
Will went cold.
That day. No one was supposed to have seen. And if they had, he’d assumed they would run. Hide. Despise him. But Matthew…Matthew knew everything. And he hadn’t flinched.
He was asking for closeness.
Exhaustion settled over him like lead. He was so tired. Tired of running, tired of hiding, tired of the past circling like a vulture.
“Let’s start with a ride home,” he said. “We’ll see after that.”
Matthew lit up. Will didn’t have the strength to stamp it out.
Matthew opened the car door for him, and Will almost decked him, but restrained himself with half the police force watching. Matthew saw the burst of rage and backed up, hands raised, smiling sheepishly.
Maybe sensing Will’s fatigue, Matthew talked the entire ride, saying nothing requiring answers, nothing intrusive. Will found himself oddly grateful. It let his mind drift for a few minutes.
Borrowed peace. But by the time they reached his hotel, he was thankful for it.
Thankful enough that, when Matthew said he’d gladly give him another ride, Will responded with a grunt instead of the rejection he should have given.
Once Matthew’s taillights faded and Will had checked, twice, that he wasn’t still lurking in the parking lot like a shadow that didn’t know how to detach, he stopped in front of his motel door.
Stopped, and couldn’t make himself move.
The room behind it felt hostile. Too loud with silence. Too crowded with everyone else’s projections: Matthew’s hunger, Alana’s guilt, the Bureau’s expectations. Even Abigail’s fear, old and persistent.
He was exhausted. Bone-deep, marrow-deep tired. But he didn’t want to cross that threshold and be alone with all the versions of himself that other people kept insisting he was.
So he turned.
Not consciously. Not purposefully. His body moved first, pulling him away from the door, away from the room that felt like a trap someone had set with his own hands.
It felt inevitable, the direction he walked. Like gravity had chosen for him.
Will told himself he was only going for the quiet.
He didn’t let himself think past that, past the pulse beating too hard in his throat, the electric tremble beneath his ribs, the memory of Matthew’s eyes full of worship and need. Full of a story Will didn’t want written about him.
He didn’t let himself think about Alana either. Her surprise, her concern, the crack of something shifting inside him the second he saw her. Something dark and unsteady and far from healed.
He kept walking. Until he arrived down the block at the much nicer hotel. He raised his knuckles and gently tapped at the door.
Hannibal opened the door almost immediately.
He looked composed, of course. But Will saw the flicker of alertness beneath it, in the way Hannibal’s eyes sharpened the moment they landed on him. Taking him in. Assessing. Reading him down to bone and breath.
“Will,” Hannibal said quietly. “Come in.”
Will stepped inside before he could reconsider. The room smelled warm, like tea, paper, the faint spice of Hannibal’s cologne. He felt the tension in his shoulders ease without permission.
“You’re distressed,” Hannibal observed.
Will huffed a humorless breath and dropped onto the edge of the nearest chair. “You always say it like it’s an answer and not just obvious.”
“Sometimes the obvious is what we avoid naming,” Hannibal replied, pouring tea with slow, deliberate calm that made Will’s throat tighten.
Hannibal handed him a cup. Will didn’t miss the way Hannibal’s fingers lingered a beat too long against his, the contact warm, grounding, almost proprietary.
Will took a sip and swallowed hard. “I can’t sleep.”
Hannibal’s attention sharpened again. “Because of the shooting? Or because of whomever cornered you today?”
Will nearly choked on the tea. “How did you–?”
“It is written all over you,” Hannibal said gently. “You do not hide emotional wounds as well as you believe.”
Will stared at his hands. The words felt like a touch.
“Jack interrogated me at the Hobbs house,” he said slowly. Confession. Release of the pressure of holding it on his shoulders.
Will read how angry Hannibal was in his sudden stillness. Then he relaxed, though it appeared a little forced to him. More forced than he’d ever noticed Hannibal acting.
“He undoubtedly assumed the venue would unsettle you. Highly inappropriate, especially taking into consideration your cooperation and status as a consultant.”
Will almost smiled. Hannibal caught the motion, head tilted slightly, curiosity in his eyes.
“No it’s…Alana was there. She said the same thing. I was thinking that it was interesting how you two said nearly the same words yet they felt different coming from you.”
“Ah, Alana Bloom,” Hannibal said, eyes darkening with something Will couldn’t parse. “I imagine it was unpleasant hearing it from someone who sees only the boy you once were, not the man you have become.”
A strange ache bloomed in Will’s chest.
“She thinks I need protecting,” he muttered.
“Do you want her protection?” Hannibal asked quietly.
Will didn’t answer.
Hannibal smiled. It was small, almost invisible, but unmistakably pleased.
“I see,” he murmured. He studied Will for a moment more. “There was something else. Perhaps Matthew Brown?”
“How did you know?”
Hannibal just gave him a knowing, albeit gentle look.
“I didn’t tell you.”
“You didn’t have to.” Hannibal set his cup down and moved closer. Slow enough that it didn’t startle, close enough that Will could feel the heat of him. “Your mind is loud tonight.”
Will exhaled shakily. “Everything’s loud.”
“And Matthew Brown did not help.”
“He…he said that he sees me. Hannibal, how can he…I don’t want—” Will let out a shaky exhale and rubbed his forehead. “I just… wanted quiet. I wanted—” He stopped. He couldn’t say it. He wouldn’t.
Hannibal stepped behind him, hands hovering for a moment over Will’s shoulders like a question, a boundary he was offering Will the illusion of choosing.
Will nodded before he could think. Hannibal’s hands settled on him.
Warm. Firm. Certain.
Will’s breath hitched. He didn’t realize how tightly he’d been wound until Hannibal’s thumbs began to work gently into the tension near his neck. Not seductive, at least not deliberately. Not overt. But deeply, deeply intimate.
Grounding.
Possessive.
“You’re exhausted,” Hannibal murmured above him. His voice was low enough that Will felt it more than heard it. “Let me help.”
“This is…” Will swallowed. “This is too much.”
“It is exactly what you need,” Hannibal countered softly.
Will shut his eyes. He hated how good it felt to be understood. To be held up without judgment. To be seen without being pitied.
He leaned back, just slightly, and Hannibal’s hands steadied him as if he’d been waiting for exactly that motion.
“Will,” Hannibal said quietly, almost reverently, “you are not alone. Not tonight.”
Will’s throat tightened.
He didn’t know what he was becoming in Hannibal’s hands.
He only knew he couldn’t walk away.
Will didn’t know how long Hannibal kept his hands on him, only that the minutes stopped feeling real. His thoughts softened around the edges, blurred like a watercolor left in rain. His body grew heavier, the weight of the day finally dragging at him instead of flaring hot and frantic beneath his skin.
He realized, distantly, that he was leaning more fully into Hannibal’s touch than he meant to. Hannibal’s palms were still slow, steady, undoing the knots in Will’s neck one by one with disarming patience.
“You’re safe,” Hannibal murmured.
The words should have rung false. Should have startled him. Should have made him recoil.
Instead they slipped through him like warm air.
Will blinked hard. The room tilted. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“And yet you came.”
He didn’t have an answer for that.
Hannibal stepped around him so he could see Will’s face. Will didn’t like how easily Hannibal read him like this, like the exhaustion made him transparent, open, and Hannibal could see every frayed thread beneath his skin.
“Will,” Hannibal said softly. “You are moments from collapsing. Lie down.”
“I don’t-” Will rubbed his eyes. “I don’t sleep well. Especially lately.”
“I know,” Hannibal said gently. “Let me help.”
He said it the way one might say let me breathe. As if it were the simplest and most natural thing in the world.
Will hesitated. But his vision blurred again, more heavily this time, and he realized he was trembling. He wasn’t even cold.
Just unraveling.
Hannibal guided him to the bed without touching him, simply walking beside him, creating a quiet path to fall into. He let Will sit first, then eased the blankets back with deliberate care.
Will hated how grateful he felt for that brief moment of gentleness.
He lay down slowly, fighting the instinct to spring back up. “This is stupid,” he muttered.
“Needing rest is human,” Hannibal said. “So is accepting comfort.”
Hannibal sat beside him. Not too close, but close enough that Will could feel the warmth of him through the half-dark.
“Try to sleep,” Hannibal murmured.
Will shut his eyes, more to block out Hannibal’s gaze than anything else. He expected his mind to race, to fill with fire or blood or Matthew’s voice or the echo of Jack’s interrogation.
But Hannibal stayed at his side.
And for once, Will’s mind did not spiral.
When his breathing started to hitch from a dream he wasn’t even fully in yet, Hannibal touched his arm lightly, barely more than a whisper of pressure.
It steadied him like an anchor.
“Easy,” Hannibal said. “Just breathe.”
Will exhaled shakily. His muscles unclenched.
Somewhere between Hannibal’s voice and the quiet warmth sitting beside him, Will drifted.
He didn’t remember falling asleep.
Will didn’t know how long he slept.
The air in the room felt different when he surfaced; heavier, like something unseen pressed against it. Almost unreal, or like a dream. His eyelids dragged open by a fraction, just enough to catch a blurred shape in the dim lamp glow.
A figure sitting in a chair beside the bed.
Watching him.
Will’s breath hitched. The figure didn’t move.
“Hannibal…?” His voice rasped, sleep-thick and uncertain.
“I’m here.”
The answer was soft. Too soft. Like it had been spoken inches from his skin even though Hannibal hadn’t moved at all.
Will blinked, trying to make sense of the moment, but exhaustion pinned him down, fogging the edges of everything.
He felt, rather than saw, Hannibal rise.
A rustle of fabric. A shift in the air. Then the dip of the mattress at Will’s side, subtle but undeniable.
Will stiffened instinctively.
Hannibal stopped, but didn’t retreat. “You’re dreaming with your eyes open,” he murmured.
Will wanted to protest. To roll away. To sit up and demand distance.
But his body betrayed him. Too tired, too drained, too sore from holding himself together all day. He didn’t have the strength to do anything but lie there, caught between waking and drifting.
Hannibal’s fingers brushed the side of Will’s throat.
Barely a touch.
Barely anything at all.
Yet Will felt it like a spark under his skin, his pulse jumping violently at the contact. Hannibal’s voice came next, warm enough to almost cover the hunger threading beneath it.
“Your heart is racing,” he whispered. “Even in sleep, you are overwhelmed.”
Will forced a swallow. He couldn’t decide if he should pull away or lean into the warmth he hadn’t realized he’d been craving until this second.
“Hannibal,” he breathed. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Hannibal murmured, maddeningly gentle. His thumb traced a slow, thoughtful path along Will’s jaw. A possessive touch dressed up as comfort. “Don’t steady you? Don’t help you rest?”
Will tried to turn his face away but Hannibal’s hand followed without pressing, without holding, just staying there. A constant presence he couldn’t escape from.
A presence he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“You’re exhausted,” Hannibal continued, voice dipping lower. “Frightened. Hunted.” A pause. “I will not let anyone corner you the way Jack did today.”
Will’s eyes fluttered shut. “He didn’t-he just-”
“He interrogated you while you were traumatized.” Hannibal’s tone darkened, a blade wrapped in velvet. “He exploited your vulnerability without hesitation.”
Will felt Hannibal lean closer, his breath stirring the curls near Will’s ear.
“You came to me,” Hannibal whispered. “Not to him. Not to Dr. Bloom. Not to anyone else. You came here.”
The words weren’t an observation. They were a claim.
Will’s chest tightened in something like panic, or something like relief.
He couldn’t tell which.
Hannibal’s fingers slid through a strand of Will’s hair. A light touch. Reverent. Dangerous.
“I will protect you from them,” Hannibal said quietly. “From their questions. From their judgments. From their lies.”
Will’s thoughts swam. Matthew’s voice flickered through his mind–like an angel sent to cull the unfaithful–then Alana’s pity, Jack’s pressure, the weight of fire and memory pressing in on him.
Too much. All of it.
Hannibal’s hand settled lightly against his shoulder, firm enough to ground him.
“You don’t have to run tonight,” he murmured. “You’re not alone.”
Will didn’t mean to turn toward him. He just did. Not fully, just enough that his forehead brushed the back of Hannibal’s hand. Enough to feel the warmth, to feel seen in a way that didn’t burn.
Hannibal inhaled softly. A sound so faint Will might have imagined it. But Hannibal’s hand cupped the side of his head a moment later, a cradle more than a hold, fingertips threading lightly into his hair.
“You’re safe,” he murmured again.
The thing that terrified Will was how much he wanted to believe him.
Sleep dragged him down before he could decide whether or not he should. And the last thing he felt was Hannibal’s thumb stroking, once, slow and deliberate, along the hinge of his jaw.
A touch like a promise. Or a vow. Or a claim.