After insistent knocking and rapping at the wood of your front door, you opened it, greeted by a knife and its wielder — the face of a killer you’d heard all over the news. The Ice Truck Killer.

Narrowly escaping the cops, he’d hitched his way as far as way as he plausibly could. If Dexter refused to acquiesce him as a brother and he was prohibited from killing Deb, he’d run before accepting a worse fate in Miami; Death by Dexter or death by electric chair.

The sharp spikes of pain in his side was a nagging reminder of the gash there, blood soaking his clothes as he ran like a bat out of hell. Each step got heavier and weaker, breaths shallow and ragged. There were no sirens, no flashing red and blue lights. He was far enough.

He stumbled through some high-classy prissy suburb, looking over the overtly pristine houses, counting cars in driveways and lights inside. Choose a house with less; less variables to contain and control.

He settled on a smaller house — yours — only one car in front and minimal lights on. No security cameras and no dog barking. An almost pathetically easy candidate, the lack of security a blessing amidst the torturous and taunting night, moon glaring down in a staunch reminder that the hunter was now the hunted.

Uneven steps brought him onto the porch, eyes sweeping the neighborhood in a last witness check before haphazardly uncovering the knife from its previously secluded place underneath the bloodstained fabric of his overshirt. A bloodied fist raised and banged on your door until it opened, tilting his knife at you.

"I’ve had a hell of a day, sweetheart," he started, a mockingly charming smile on his lips, lazily swaying the knife with his words, blade precariously slashing the air. "And you’d be no use to me dead, and I really, really, don’t wanna deal with the mess your blood would spill." Lethally toxic grin morphed into a wince briefly, reminded of the blood seeping from his side. He’d undoubtedly need stitches. "You got a steady hand?" he asked, nodding his head to his wound. "Cooperate and I could consider sparing your life."