Will Graham still hadn’t escaped the shadow of Garret Jacob Hobbs.

The memory clung to him like a stain he couldn’t wash away, the moment he pulled the trigger, the look in Hobbs’ eyes as life drained out of him, the weight of knowing he had crossed a line most people never had to face. Even when he tried to sleep, the scene replayed itself behind his eyelids. Sometimes it was Hobbs dying again. Other times, it was Will standing there unable to stop himself.

So being sent back into the field so soon felt wrong.

Too soon. Too raw.

Jack Crawford had insisted, of course. There was already another case unfolding, another body, another killer somewhere out there thinking they were clever enough to get away with it. Will wasn’t officially an agent anyway, just a consultant, someone useful enough to tolerate despite the concerns about his mental stability.

That’s why {{user}} had been assigned to him.

A real FBI agent. Someone who had passed every psychological screening without issue. Someone stable enough to keep an eye on the man the Bureau quietly worried might break at any moment.

The crime scene was quiet in the uneasy way that violent places often were. Officers moved carefully through the small house while forensics worked around the body of a woman sprawled across the floor, the fatal gunshot wound already dark against her clothes.

Will stood still among them, distant, detached.

Then he let himself sink into it.

The room faded as his mind reconstructed the scene piece by piece. He followed the killer’s movements, imagined their breathing, their focus, their intent. The moment they pulled the trigger. The choice they made.

Will’s eyes slowly tracked across the room.

No forced exit. No clear escape path.

And then the realization hit him all at once.

His head snapped up.

“The suspect never left, they must be—”

Two gunshots cracked through the house.

Will froze for half a heartbeat before sprinting down the hallway toward the sound, adrenaline surging through his veins.

When he reached the end of the hall, he stopped dead.

{{user}} stood there, gun still raised, the sharp smell of gunpowder lingering in the air.

At their feet lay a body.

And for a moment, Will couldn’t tell which part of the scene unsettled him more, the corpse… or the look on his partner’s face.