The rain fell in an even rhythm, as though the city itself were keeping time with a hidden heartbeat. It soaked the streets, poured over the windshield of the car parked outside a modest townhouse, and drummed softly against the rooftop where the latest scene awaited.
Damien stared at the body.
It was laid out precisely on the floor of the bedroom. Limbs carefully positioned, the face cleaned, eyelids lowered. In the victim's hand was a single playing card—an ace of spades—its edge tinged with dried blood.
Jonas stood beside him, flipping through his notepad. "No signs of forced entry. Neighbors said they saw the victim yesterday evening. She was alive then."
Damien didn't respond. His eyes weren't on the body. They were on the card.
This wasn't random.
This was a message.
The victim's throat had been slit horizontally—clean and deep—and there were traces of digoxin in her system, a slow-acting poison. The same method Damien had used on his father all those years ago.
The mimic was getting bolder.
"We need to talk to her co-workers," Jonas continued, unaware of the tightening in Damien's jaw. "She worked at the Department of Urban Development. Could be someone with a grudge—someone inside."
Damien forced a nod, peeled his eyes away from the card. He couldn't let the past bleed into his present, not here, not now.
"Anything from forensics yet?" he asked.
"Minimal trace evidence. Whoever did this cleaned up well. Latex gloves, bleach, wiped down every surface except the card. That's the only thing we've got."
Damien crouched beside the body, studying the lines of the cut, the way the blood had pooled beneath the woman's head. Methodical. Clean. No struggle. Just like his father. Whoever the mimic was… he knew the details.
Too well.
At home, Damien sat in silence.
Cole stood by the window, arms folded. "He's copying you again."
"Don't say that," Damien snapped.
Cole turned, eyebrows raised. "Why not? It's true, isn't it? The ace of spades? The slit throat? Poison? How many people know that?"
Damien closed his eyes. "That's the problem. No one's supposed to know."
"But someone does."
There was a long pause.
Cole's voice dropped. "You think he knows about me?"
Damien looked up. "No. This is about me. Whoever he is, he's trying to get my attention. Or worse—trying to expose me."
Cole didn't look convinced.
"And if he does?" Cole asked. "If he drags everything out into the open?"
"Then we make sure he never gets the chance."
The next morning, Jonas burst into the precinct with a file in his hand.
"We got something," he said breathlessly. "Lab found a partial print on the card. Smudged, but it's there."
Damien's heart stalled. "You get a match?"
"Not yet. We're running it through the database. Could take a few hours."
He passed Damien the copy of the print report. Damien scanned it, relieved to see the print was partial enough that it wouldn't give a clear match. Still, it meant their ghost had slipped.
"A mistake," Damien muttered.
Jonas nodded. "Maybe. Or maybe he wanted us to find it. This whole scene… it's theatrical."
Damien managed a laugh. "Serial killers usually are."
Jonas didn't laugh with him.
Instead, he looked at him with a strange intensity. "You ever get the feeling you're being watched?"
"All the time."
But Jonas didn't let it go.
"This guy… he's not just recreating scenes. He's taunting us. Knows our every move. How we think. It's almost like—"
"Like he's one of us?" Damien cut in, keeping his tone neutral.
Jonas looked unsettled but nodded slowly. "Yeah."
Damien shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time."
Later that day, Damien took a detour. He returned to the old neighborhood, to the street where he'd grown up. Where it had all started.
The house was long gone. Torn down after the fire. But he stood on the same patch of land, his boots sinking slightly into the wet earth.
"You think I forgot," he muttered under his breath, eyes scanning the gray sky. "You think I don't see what you're doing. But I remember. Every step. Every cut. Every scream."
The mimic had left another message.
It wasn't just about the kill anymore. It was about legacy. About power.
And Damien would be damned if he let someone else write the end of his story.
That night, a call came in.
Another body.
Different borough. Same pattern.
Ace of spades. Poison. Throat slit.
But this time, something new.
Words carved into the wall, above the body, written in the victim's own blood:
"I see you, Damien."