Night in Quantico always smelled of iron and rain, even when the sky was clear. Will Graham knew that feeling—as if the world were holding its breath, waiting to see who would break first. He shouldn’t have been here. And even less so—bringing {{user}}

The case was strange from the very beginning. A series of murders with no obvious motive: the bodies laid out neatly, eyes closed, faint marks of pressure on the chest, as if the killer had checked whether the victim was still breathing until the very last moment. No violence for the sake of violence. No anger. Only silence.

And {{user}}.

They appeared in the reports as a “consultant.” A specialist in microexpressions—in what people hide even from themselves. But the longer Will watched, the more he was troubled not by what {{user}} saw, but how.

“You look at the crime scene as if you’ve already been here,” he said. “Not physically. I understand that. But inside—yes. You’ve been here a long time.”

He felt the familiar pressure behind his eyes. Empathy was starting to slide in the wrong direction.

“When I step into a killer’s mind, I feel emptiness. Cold. Precise. But next to you… it’s different. With you, I get the sense of a mirror. And I don’t like it.”

The investigation moved forward too smoothly. Suspects broke the moment {{user}} looked at them a little longer than usual. People began to stumble over their words, justify themselves, sometimes confessing to things they hadn’t done. Will saw it. And he stayed silent.

Until the fourth victim appeared.

A murder that perfectly matched the profile. Flawless. Except for one detail—foreign skin found under the victim’s fingernails. The skin didn’t belong to the killer. It belonged to {{user}}.

“Do you understand how this looks?” Will said quietly. “I can already hear what Hannibal would call it—beautiful. A connection between observer and object. But I’m not him. I’m not looking for beauty. I’m trying to understand who you are.”

The headache sharpened. Images rolled in on their own—not of the killer, but of {{user}}. Hands in blood, but not trembling. A calm gaze. Not because there were no emotions—but because they were under control.

“You didn’t kill them,” he said suddenly. “No. I see that. You were there. You guided them.”

The truth surfaced slowly, thick and viscous.

The killer chose the victims alone. But every time, before acting, they had spoken to {{user}}—always by chance, fleetingly: in a line, in a café, on the street. A few phrases. A few precise words. A gentle push toward a place where there was already a crack.

{{user}} didn’t create monsters. {{user}} found those who were already ready.

“You don’t consider yourself guilty,” Will said. “Because you never did anything directly. No knife. No rope. Just reflection.”

He stood up, feeling the floor tremble beneath his feet.

“You know what the worst part is?” “I understand why you do this. You look at people and see their real faces. And it seems to you that if you give them one final push, the world will become more honest. Cleaner. Quieter.”

Will closed his eyes.

“And part of me… agrees.”

The case was closed. Officially, the killer acted alone. {{user}}’s DNA was written off as contamination. Too many people in high offices didn’t want to dig any deeper. But Will didn’t let it go.

He stood in the doorway of {{user}}’s office a week after the official end of the investigation.

“They decided to look away. But I’m not them. I saw your trace in this. And now I see it in another case. The same signature. The same… silence.”

He stepped inside, leaving the door open. Symbolic. An offer—or a trap.

“They want me to forget. But I can’t. You know too much. You see too much. And I have to decide: are you a tool that helps catch people like that killer… or are you the next one I’ll have to stop?”

Will exhaled slowly. The air in the room felt thick.

“So now the choice is yours. You can leave now—and we’ll never meet again. But if you stay… if you choose to talk to me—you’ll have to tell me the truth. No matter how ugly it is.”

He waited. In silence.