Maya took the train into the city. She’d told Chuck that she was taking a cab, but there was no way she could justify spending that much money when it wasn’t necessary. Chuck was different that way. He’d grown up with money, or at least, that was what she assumed going off of his childhood pictures. It was very different for Maya. She never spent money on anything that wasn’t absolutely crucial.

 

She watched from the windows of the train as the trees and bushes and open plains transformed into low, flat buildings, which then transformed into tall, long ones. Maya felt a huge lump form in her throat as the minutes ticked by, growing larger and larger as the city overwhelmed the landscape. The city was a big black cave of dangers as far as Maya was concerned, and it seemed darker, even though it was still midday by the time she arrived.

 

When the train slid to a stop, she waited until all the other passengers in her car moved out before she got to her feet, reaching up into the overhead compartment above the seats to grab her stuffed suitcase. She didn’t know how long this case was going to last, so she’d packed for about two weeks. If it stretched longer than that (God forbid, Maya thought), she’d just go to a laundromat.

 

Before she could head for the exit, her phone’s notification went off, signaling a new text message. She pulled out her cell and saw it was from Arsen. “At train stop. Are you there?” So he was waiting on her. Great. Just great. There was no possibility of any extra time preparing herself to deal with him, then.

 

Maya sighed deeply, clutching hard at the handle of her suitcase as if it were an anchor, and headed off the train into the crowd of people bustling around in search for their families and friends on the platform.

 

She could feel him before she saw him. That’s the way it always was with Arsen. He had an aura about him, a force-field of energy unlike anybody else she’d ever met. She turned around, looking for him, but then a second later, a pair of familiar, broad hands landed on her shoulders, squeezing lightly before pulling away. Arsen.

 

Maya turned back around to face him, plastering on a fake, overly polite smile in the process. “Hey, how are you?” she said brightly, as if he were an old acquaintance from high school she hadn’t seen in years rather than an ex she’d spoken with very recently.

 

“Good,” Arsen said. “Really good. How was your train ride?”

 

“Eh, it was fine,” Maya said with a shrug, her face muscles already starting to ache from the effort of maintaining her smile.

 

“Let’s go home,” Arsen said a moment later, taking the suitcase out of her arms, ridding her of her anchor just when she needed it the most.

 

Maya felt her face screw up in confusion, hurrying to follow along after Arsen, whose long legs were hard to keep up with. “Home? I called a motel near downtown. They have vacancies. I figured I’d just…”

 

“No, no, no, no,” Arsen said, shaking his head. “That’s no good. Why do you want to waste money on that when I’ve got a place right here where you can stay for free?”

 

“It’s not about the money,” Maya said tersely, feeling her irritation level rise already, even just two minutes into an interaction with Arsen.

 

Arsen stopped walking, turning to face her. Maya felt her face heat up. They were standing so close to each other, much closer than she liked to stand next to anybody, honestly. But she tried not to show any of her discomfort on her face, keeping her expression bland and blank.

 

“I have a spare bedroom. You’d be a lot more comfortable and able to focus, and besides, this way we can work on the case day and night,” Arsen said with a shrug, as if that automatically canceled out any of the other reasons they shouldn’t sleep in the same place.

 

“It’s…it’s inappropriate,” Maya said in response, averting her eyes to stare over Arsen’s shoulder, looking at anything other than his eyes. “I have a fiancé now, you know.”

 

Arsen was silent, but out of the corner of her eye she could see him swallow forcefully, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat.

 

“Congratulations,” he murmured in response, clapping her on the shoulder as if they were old baseball buddies. “That’s…I’m really happy for you, good for you.”

 

Maya nodded back at him, but somehow she couldn’t manage to force another smile. It felt too…wrong. She knew what Arsen was thinking. All those years together, and he had never proposed. They hadn’t even talked about marriage, but here she was a little over a year after they’d broken up, and she was already planning a wedding. She felt a little guilty about it, thinking that maybe Arsen even felt a little hurt by the rapidity of her actions, but goddammit, she deserved to have a life, didn’t she?

 

“Anyways, your fiancé doesn’t have anything to worry about,” Arsen said, beginning to walk again, his steps coming down hard and fast on the pavement beneath their feet, outpacing Maya so that she trailed behind him. She sped up to match his pace, turning to look at him and seeing that he was chewing on his bottom lip. Evidently, he wasn’t as confident as he was trying to sound, and that gave Maya a little more confidence. Maybe she could talk him out of it and manage to stay in the motel.

 

But…he did make good points, right? The case was what mattered, above all else, and what was the point in even coming here if she wasn’t going to maximize the amount of effort she spent trying to get into the mind of the killer? If she stayed in a motel, she’d have to spend at least an hour each day on the subway, to and from Arsen’s office, and that was a waste of time that the kidnapped girl couldn’t afford.

 

She was just about to voice her agreement when Arsen spoke again. “I mean, your fiancé isn’t that insecure, right? We’re just friends now, right?” He flashed a smile as he looked over at her, bright and brilliant, almost blinding. He always used to do that when he was trying to get what he wanted out of her. In the past she was usually so charmed by it, thinking it was adorable, like he was a naughty schoolboy talking his way out of the principal’s office. But now, it only infuriated her, making her ball her hands up into fists, swinging her arms harder at her sides.

 

Maya was tempted to stay at the motel just out of spite now. But Arsen had backed her into a corner. No matter what she said or did, he was going to get what he wanted, in one form or another. If she told him that she wasn’t going to stay with him now, after he’d said that, it’d be like she was admitting that her new relationship was flawed, and that was entirely unacceptable.

 

“Fine,” she spat out, feeling about as annoyed as she’d ever felt before in her life. But whatever. She’d deal with this just like she’d dealt with everything else. She wished she’d sounded a bit more casual about it. Arsen probably knew how irritated she was, which only annoyed her even more. But she just sped up, walking faster, heading in the vague direction of downtown and turning whenever Arsen instructed her to.

 

She’d just have to avoid letting Chuck know about this. He acted unbothered by the entire situation, but men were men, after all. They were possessive and protective and often very unwilling to understand nuance. She had no intention of doing anything inappropriate with Arsen, but that didn’t mean that Chuck would trust her. Better to just keep things under wraps until the case was over.

 

“This is the place,” Arsen announced after about fifteen minutes of brisk, silent walking. “I’m on the bottom floor,” he said as they stepped into the building. He unlocked the front door of his apartment and swung it open for Maya, who hesitated for a second before walking in, looking around at her surroundings. It was a lot more depressing than their old home together, that was for sure. She figured it must be cheaper. It wasn’t easy for a single person to live in the city on their own. Arsen flicked on the lights, and Maya could see a thick layer of dust over almost every surface in the living room, practically filling the air like smoke. Jesus, this place needed a woman’s touch. “You been staying in the office at night or something?” she asked without thinking. She’d wanted to maintain a certain degree of distance with Arsen, act professional the whole time. But she was just so curious. She couldn’t help herself from asking about his life now.

 

“Um, yeah, pretty much,” Arsen admitted as he locked the front door behind them, stepping past Maya into the kitchen. “You want something to drink? Water?”

 

“I’ll have some whiskey if you still have it,” Maya said, again her tongue moving of its own accord while her brain took a vacation. But whatever. The words were out there, and there was no sense taking them back now. Maya resigned herself to the fact that she was going to regress a little bit while she was in the city. It was only natural. For her to be as healthy and normal as possible, she needed to stay out in the country, where things were safe and simple. As long as she was in the city again, she’d need to drink just to hold on. It helped her think; it focused her thoughts by burying her emotions deep inside of her. That was what she needed.

 

In any case, Arsen didn’t look surprised. “I got some, sure,” he said casually, going into one of his cabinets to take out an almost-empty bottle and pouring out the rest of its contents into a wide shot glass for Maya.

 

She walked over to stand next to him in the kitchen, accepting the glass from his hand. Their fingers brushed together slightly, Maya’s skin prickled where it came into contact with Arsen’s. She quickly downed the whiskey, relishing the sweet burn of the alcohol as it went down her throat, grimacing a little at the after-taste. This was cheap stuff, but it would get the job done.

 

“Want some scotch?” Arsen asked, grabbing a nearly-full bottle from his liquor cabinet and waving in front of Maya.

 

She just nodded, handing her empty glass back to be refilled with more alcohol. This went down smoother, but it affected her more immediately, filling her fingers and toes with a numb buzzing sensation that she had missed sorely during all those months of sobriety.

 

“You must be starving,” Arsen said, opening up the refrigerator and pulling out large containers full of food. “I made some stuff earlier. I thought you might like it.”

 

Maya poured herself some more scotch and walked over next to Arsen to look at the options he’d laid out in front of her. It was pasta and chicken, her favorite. He’d remembered. But somehow she didn’t feel warm and fuzzy about it. It scared her, sending a cold chill up her spine. But she faked a polite smile anyway. Somehow, she felt like she was in a silent war with Arsen, and the battleground was her own expression, her own emotion. If she gave ground and revealed that he’d successfully shaken her up, he’d win, which was completely unacceptable. Don’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you upset. Don’t let him see that you give a single fuck at all, she silently coached herself, nodding at Arsen to wordlessly tell him to reheat the food for dinner.

 

“I figured we’d get started right away,” Arsen said, piling the food onto plates and sticking them into the microwave. “The missing girl is probably in the hands of The Blade, the serial killer who’s been hunting teenage girls in the area for the past several months. He’s killed a dozen already, and there are at least two in his custody, as far as we know. The police aren’t helping me, as per usual, but I’ve managed to get my hands on some crime scene photos. I figure it might help get into his mindset,” he said as he walked over to the living room to pull something out of a set of drawers sitting against the wall. It took Maya a second before she recognized the piece of furniture—his evidence cabinet. It was in their old home, once upon a time, and now it was here. It was a little disturbing, seeing reminders of their old life together, but Maya shrugged her shoulders up and down, trying to shake the weird feeling off. Every time you get anxious, he wins. Remember that, she said to herself, plastering on a fake smile as Arsen returned to the kitchen.

 

The microwave dinged a moment later, so Arsen set about getting the food ready before he put the plates down on the kitchen table, nodding at Maya to sit down before him. She chose the plate with less food, an old habit leftover from her childhood. Her mother always taught her to be nice, polite, and self-sacrificing. It was a hard habit to shake, even in her early thirties.

 

She’d barely gotten her fork into her mouth, tasting the mouth-watering flavor of Arsen’s familiar cooking, when he spread out five pictures in front of her—five dead bodies, all mutilated beyond recognition. Maya swallowed her mouthful of food, even though now it felt like a rock tumbling down into her stomach, and placed her hands on the first picture, tugging it closer to get a better look.

 

The dead girl had long, thin cuts on her legs, like only the very tip of the knife was used, without digging deeper. They were so neat, so precise. He must have had the girl pinned down somehow, secured in place, so that she wouldn’t mess up his work by squirming around in pain. Maybe she was even sedated.

 

There was a hole in her chest, much messier, with clots of dried blood visible even in the photograph. Her heart…. The killer had taken her heart out. Maya swallowed thickly to clear the lump in her throat and blinked a few times, willing herself to keep going, to keep looking until she found something that really mattered. Maya’s eyes scanned over the picture, trying to find any detail that stood out to her as different or weird or special. It took her a few minutes before she saw it, and then it hit her all at once.

 

“Her clothes,” she murmured to Arsen, who hovered next to her rather than sitting down and eating.

 

Arsen leaned over her shoulder to look, staring at the picture for a moment before shaking her head. “I don’t see it…what’s wrong with her clothes?”

 

“Nothing,” Maya said. “That’s the point. There’s nothing wrong with them. They’re impeccably clean, except around the chest. They’re freshly laundered. That…most killers don’t do that, even if they keep their captives for longer than a few days. Most killers will let their victims just sit in their own filth, getting dirtier and dirtier as each day goes by. This guy…this guy didn’t do that. He cleaned them.”

 

Maya’s heart started pounding in her temples, feeling like somebody was taking a baseball bat to each side of her brain. She felt like she was going to throw up. He cleaned them, she kept thinking, on a loop within her mind. He fucking cleaned them.

 

That was the worst thing, looking back on it all, the way Maya’s captor had taken care of her, the way he washed her and kissed her. For years after the event, she struggled to shower, to press a damp washcloth against her body without thinking about it. He’d beat her up, do things to her, and then take a towel to her body, cleaning off any dirt or grime or dust from her skin. “You’re my good girl,” he had murmured to her, kissing the top of her head. “You’re my good, clean girl.”

 

“Excuse me,” she murmured as she bolted upright from her seat. She had intended to rush to the bathroom, but she forgot that she didn’t know where it was in this new apartment. “Where…I…” Maya stuttered out, words failing her as image after image of her own captivity returned to her.

 

“Hey, hey,” Arsen said, putting a hand around her back, just like he used to do when panic attacks struck her in the middle of the night for no reason. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. It’s okay here. It’s safe.”

 

Maya collapsed back down into the chair, her knees too weak to do anything else. “I…I…” She swallowed again, trying to clear her throat so that words could come out, but none of them did. She realized belatedly that she didn’t even want to talk. She didn’t want to tell him what she’d been seeing behind her eyelids. It was too shameful, too dirty, too wrong. I’m dirty. I’m wrong. I’m gross, the old mantra in her head chanted. I’m dirty. I’m wrong. I’m gross.

 

Maya’s head fell forward into her hands, her breath puffing out painfully as her lungs worked overtime to get oxygen to her heart, which pumped hard, like it was about to be cut out itself. “I’m…fucked-up,” she finally murmured, talking more to herself, to the voices in her head, than to Arsen.

 

But Arsen was there in a second, placing his strong hands on her shoulders, massaging her muscles with his fingers. Maya rocked back into his touch, leaning her head back onto his stomach, her breathing starting to come out more and more slowly and regularly than before. “I’m not strong enough for this,” she whispered, saying her fear out loud.

 

“Yes, you are,” Arsen said back, his hands digging harder into the flesh and muscle of her back, skimming over her spine as he moved downward. “You’re the strongest woman I know.”

 

“You must not know a lot of women,” Maya said reflexively, laughing a little, even though she hadn’t meant it as a joke.

 

Arsen returned her laughter, but then a second later, he leaned over her neck to whisper something into her ear: “You know you’re the only one.”

 

Maya flinched back out of his touch, springing out of the chair like she’d been stung by something. “No, don’t,” she said, walking backwards until the back of her legs hit the kitchen counter behind her.

 

“What’s wrong?” Arsen asked, and for a second, Maya was terrified that he was going to approach her, to walk across the room and close the distance between their bodies, but he didn’t, staying behind the chair that Maya had just vacated.

 

Maya’s breathing gradually slowed down, the panic ebbing like a wave, little by little as the seconds went by. “I, just, you can’t touch me like that,” she finally replied as soon as she was capable of speech again.

 

“I’m sorry,” Arsen said, and for a long moment Maya was utterly convinced that she’d imagined it. Arsen, apologizing? When had that ever happened? He always acted like he ruled the world, like every choice he made was deliberate and justified, that nothing should or could stand in his way. What was he doing apologizing to her, apparently sincerely, only an hour after they’d reunited?

 

“You’re sorry?” Maya echoed, feeling like she needed to hear it again to make sure that she hadn’t totally hallucinated his last statement.

 

Arsen nodded to her, a small smile spreading across his lips. So clearly he wasn’t that apologetic. But he said, “I am. I am sorry that I scared you. I was just trying to make you feel better. Come sit back down and eat. You need to get something in your stomach. That’s probably half the reason you panicked a minute ago.”

 

There was some truth to what he was saying. She used to go days without eating sometimes, just because it felt nice to ignore the pains and pleasures of her body, and then the panic attacks would come, overwhelming her until she finally stopped being stupid and ate. Maya slowly walked back over to the chair now, staring at Arsen and wordlessly ordering him to move. She waited for him to comply, stepping back a few feet, before she sat back down and stared again at the pictures he’d spread out in front of her.

 

“It’s the clothes,” she said, picking up her fork to twirl more pasta around before bringing it to her mouth and forcing a heavy swallow. “The clothes. They’re clean. He’s cleaned them. He likes to pretend that he takes care of them, that he protects them. They’re his art and his children at the same time. He doesn’t think he’s punishing them,” she said, feeling her vision go blurry and unfocused as she continued to speak. Her brain and her body were detaching themselves from each other, letting her look at the pictures without panicking. Good, she thought. It was better to be numb than to be alive, if the price of the latter was so high.

 

Arsen nodded quickly, his eyes glued to the photographs rather than looking at Maya. “Good. That’s good. I hadn’t…I hadn’t thought of that. What about…?” He paused as he pulled the first photo back and pushed the other four closer to Maya. “What about those? Anything special about them?”

 

Maya didn’t answer for a long minute; she just stared down at the four pictures. “The girls are different from each other,” she murmured out loud, her eyes flicking back and forth from the different photographs. “Black, white, Asian. He doesn’t stick to one type.”

 

Arsen leaned over the table, at what must have been an uncomfortable angle for his back, as he pointed out a detail on the third picture. “He made a weird engraving here, on her skin, just below the knee. It’s not the best picture of it. Clearly whoever was photographing the crime scene didn’t notice it or he’d have gotten a close-up. But what do you think it is?”

 

Maya hadn’t noticed it at first, either. She supposed that was probably the killer’s point, to make it hard to see. But now that she looked at it, she could see that it was a spiral, carved out of flesh, a looping figure that started with a small coil, then got bigger and bigger as the killer went on. “Too soon to tell,” Maya murmured. “But it bolsters the idea that he sees what he’s doing as art. He’s an artist. He’s making a point, maybe a political point, to the world. He wants someone to figure him out. He wants to be appreciated.”

 

“Sick fuck,” Arsen muttered under his breath, finally sitting back down across from Maya and attacking his dinner with his fork and knife. Maya stared at him for a long moment, watching how he messily ate, dripping pasta sauce and seasoning down the front of his shirt without even noticing. In the past, it would have made her giggle and wipe down his shirt for him. She would have leaned over him, just as he did over her a few minutes before, and given him kisses on his neck. Maya practically shivered in her seat at the memory. It felt so real, so close, like she was watching her life unfold in front of her, looking back on her past.

 

She had to say something, do something, to erect a boundary, something that couldn’t be crossed, otherwise she couldn’t stay here. That much was clear. And Chuck, she thought. What would Chuck think, seeing me eating dinner with my ex like this?

 

Maya cleared her throat before she spoke. “You can’t do that, you know, what you did earlier. Touching me like that, talking to me like that. You just can’t. I’m engaged now,” she reminded him.

 

Arsen looked up from his dinner, his fork frozen in midair as he looked at her. “I’m sorry,” he said again, but the words came out a little too quickly, like he’d been rehearsing them beforehand. “I just…I just wanted to help you feel better. That’s all. I promise.”

 

Arsen was never much for promises, Maya remembered. He’d always say, “What will be will be.” But now he was promising to respect her boundaries. It was the best she had, for right now at least. Maybe we can be professional, she thought as she resumed eating. Maybe we can really be friends, work friends. That would be nice. After all, she and Arsen had started out as friends, at the courthouse where they’d met, both testifying against her captor. Arsen brought pictures of his little sister to present to the court while Maya brought her own scarred body as evidence. They’d bonded that day. It would be a shame to lose that connection forever, right?