The blood was still warm.
It soaked the cracked alley pavement like paint on a broken canvas—splattered, careless, artless. No reverence. No thought. Just butchery.
Brandon stood in the shadows, breathing slow, steady. In. Out. In. Out.
Across from him, the figure in the Ghostface mask was posing. Taking pictures of the corpse with a burner phone. One boot rested casually against the body's side like it was some trophy kill.
Brandon's knuckles turned white.
This wasn't justice. This wasn't order.
This was filth.
Jamal Elliot.
Brandon had followed him for weeks, tracking his movements, studying patterns, noticing the way people went missing after he was seen lurking around.
He'd known Jamal was connected to the killings.
He just hadn't expected to find someone else getting off on it.
"Wrong place," Brandon muttered under his breath. "Wrong time."
He stepped forward, quiet as breath, the crowbar in his hand catching a glint of streetlight.
The killer didn't even turn around until it was too late.
The first strike hit their shoulder—bone shattered like cheap glass. They screamed, staggered, turned—
—and Brandon struck again.
Crowbar to knee. Crunch.
Another to the ribs. Then a quick jab to the throat, cutting off the scream.
The Ghostface mask slipped sideways, revealing wide eyes, a slack jaw, and the stupid, pitiful face of some teenager—barely older than Brandon. Maybe even younger.
They tried to crawl.
Brandon didn't let them.
He stepped on their back, slammed the crowbar down once, twice, three times.
Then silence.
He looked down at the body. It twitched once.
Then nothing.
Brandon's breaths didn't come faster. His pulse didn't spike. He didn't scream or laugh or cry.
He just stood there, methodical. Empty.
This wasn't rage. Not really. Rage was fire. Rage consumed.
Brandon didn't burn.
He cut.
Sharp. Cold. Clean.
"Pretending to be a reaper," he murmured, crouching beside the body. "You weren't worthy of the scythe."
He kicked the phone from Jamal's limp hand, then turned to victims body. Sighing, he looked back to Jamal, dressed in a Ghostface costume.
Jamal was a predator. Brandon had proof. He'd been casing him for weeks. Beth's name had come up in passing—a whispered call, a text here and there—but this?
This confirmed it.
The mask. The kill. The pose.
Jamal had been Ghostface. Now he was dead.
Brandon needed more. More proof.
He rifled through Jamal's cooling body, ignoring the blood. His fingers found a second phone—locked. But not hard to break.
Back home, he used a brute-force script on his laptop. It took ten minutes.
Inside?
Photos. Notes. Some disturbing sketches.
But only one consistent contact.
Beth.
He recognized her from campus. Blonde. Braids. Piercings like armor. Walked like she owned the night.
He'd seen her once outside the art building, watching a spider crawl across her sketchpad like she wanted to feed it her secrets.
Brandon stared at the name on the screen. No last name. No emojis. Just: Beth.
A dozen texts. Short. Coded.
"Tonight's still on?"
"He won't be missed."
"Stop using the mask for stupid sh*t."
"One more, then we're even."
She was in it. Deep.
But Brandon didn't know. Not yet.
And Brandon didn't kill without knowing.
The next morning, he watched her.
From the second she stepped onto campus, he was a ghost in the background. On a bench by the sculpture garden. At the back of the quad. In the hallway near the media lab.
She looked tired, but not broken. The kind of tired that comes from losing something you cared about—but not something you regret.
She wore black, obviously. Ripped fishnets. Plaid skirt. Tank top. Leather jacket. Goth Barbie, full drip. The world looked at her and saw a stereotype.
Brandon saw something else.
Predator eyes. Always scanning. Always thinking.
She didn't look like someone mourning a boyfriend.
She looked like someone scouting a crime scene.
In Lit class, she sat in the back, scribbling in a journal. Occasionally glancing at the door like she expected someone to crash through it.
Paranoia. Guilt?
Maybe.
Brandon took a seat two rows ahead. Watched her reflection in the window.
She didn't notice him.
Not yet.
He wouldn't kill her. Not unless he had proof.
Not unless she crossed the line.
Because that's how it worked.
Brandon wasn't a monster.
He was the blade that cut monsters down.