Chapter One

"Come get me." Nes's voice sounded different. More importantly, it was three in the morning. 

"Where are you?" Jin asked, knowing very well that Nes would not say anything more on the phone. 

"Behind our school," she said. 

"What the hell are you doing there at night, Nes?" he asked. He wanted to shout but refrained from doing so lest his parents should wake up. 

"Jin… Don't ask now," Nes said, her voice tired. 

Jin did not sneak out usually. He did not go to parties since he would rather stay at home. He did not have to meet a girlfriend since he did not have one. He just had to ask his parents if he had to stay at Nes's place. 

He did not waste any time. He took the car keys and went through the front door stealthily. He was as silent as possible, but even if someone found out he was gone, he could do nothing. He would just say Nes was sick and called him at night. 

Jin drove the car like a madman. He never drove so fast. It took him less than thirty minutes to reach their school. He called Nes again. She picked up at once and told him her exact location. 

It was too dark. He used the flashlight of his phone. The trail of blood started then. 

Nes stood beside a tree completely naked, her long dark hair blowing in the wind. She was smoking a cigarette, her eyes closed as she leaned against the tree. 

"Nes," he called softly. 

She opened her eyes. Looking into her eyes was like looking at the moon. They were so gray to be almost white. 

"What happened, Nes?"

Nes looked down at something on the ground. Jin followed her gaze. He pointed the flashlight on the ground. He should have gasped, he realized. He should have been surprised. But he was not. He simply stared at the dismembered body of a man. 

Jin stared at the body for a few seconds, before he came back to his senses. He walked over to Nes and touched her face. 

"Where are you hurt?" he asked. 

"My legs," she said. "I can't walk."

He nodded and picked her up in his arms. Nes was by no means light. But Jin was stronger than he looked. 

"My clothes," Nes said, pointing at the ground. 

"You could say so beforehand," he said. He placed her down for a while to pick up her clothes, keys, and her cell phone, then picked her up again. 

"What did you kill him with?" he asked on his way back to the car. "The evidence…"

"Don't worry. The police can't trace it back to me," she said. 

"Did he do something, Nes?"

"You don't understand, Jin." Nes wrapped her arms around Jin tightly and placed her head on his shoulder. "He is a serial killer. The killer who targeted Indians or part Indians."

Everyone in their small town knew about the killer. He killed thirteen Indian men and women this year alone. Jin always told Nes to be careful. She was half Indian after all. Still, he never thought Nes would actually be targeted. When something happened to other people, it never felt serious after all. Not until the same thing happened to someone you loved. 

He placed Nes in the passenger seat and then went into the car himself. As he drove the car, all the questions tumbled out of him. 

"The CCTV, Nes… We cannot explain that. My car is clearly in the range," Jin said. 

"The killer deactivates all the cameras beforehand. He kills his victims where they work. Arrogant son of a bitch," she scoffed. "In my case, I am a student. He thought he could kill me behind my school just like that."

"How good of a hacker he is if the police could not trace him? I mean, are the police a bunch of idiots?"

"What do you expect from the police of our town?" she murmured. 

"Did he…?"

"What do you think, Jin? Do you think he could hurt me? Do you think he raped me?"

"It doesn't matter what I think, Nes," he sighed. "I just want to know if you are okay."

"I am okay. Look at me. Don't I look okay?"

He looked at her sideways, not entirely taking his eyes off the road. She had thrown out the cigarette. Her black hair fell on her chest, hiding her right side, but her left side was still visible. There was blood all over her body. There was a gash on her left thigh. It might take a few stitches. The main problem was the ankle of her left foot. It was swollen. 

"You need to go to the hospital, Nes."

"I'm pretty certain whatever needs to be done can be done at home. You can do it," she said. 

He knew she would say that. Still, he had to suggest it. 

He took her back to her house. He had to clean the car too, which he could not do at his place. His parents would notice. 

Nes lived in a gothic mansion which she inherited from her grandfather. The mansion looked like something out of a horror movie at night. 

Jin carried her inside silently, so her siblings did not wake up. 

"I hate these stairs. Some day one of you is gonna break your neck falling from this stupid stairs," he grumbled. 

Nes's room was huge. The bed was so big that at least five people could easily sleep on it. 

Jin placed her gently on her bed and took her clothes to the bathroom. 

"Where is the bleach?" 

"In the cupboard. Left side," Nes replied from the bedroom. "But really, Jin, don't bother with the clothes. I will burn them."

"You like this t-shirt," Jin pointed out. 

"I will buy another one. I'm rich anyway."

Jin sighed. He came back with the first aid kit. His father was a doctor, so he knew how to treat minor injuries. He bandaged Nes's ankle, cleaned her cuts, and stitched the cut on her thigh. Then, he took Nes to the bathroom and used a wet towel to clean her up. 

It was then that Nes told him everything. 

"I was stalking this one guy," Nes started. Once again, Jin should have been surprised, but he was not. He simply nodded and urged her to continue. "He was going to take a piss in the woods. I was waiting just behind a tree. Suddenly, I felt hands on my mouth. I tried to fight him off, but he was fucking strong. He waited till the other guy left, then bound my hands, and legs with ropes and gagged me. I really should have gone to the gym with Theo or gone to self-defense classes with Alex. Anyway, he literally carried me to our school. You can guess the rest. He freed me because he thought I was unconscious. He didn't realize I was acting that way. He wanted to take pictures of him raping me like he did with all the other victims. He never bound those people in those pictures. That's why I acted unconscious so he would free me. I let him undress me. Then, I struck him with his own knife that I grabbed from his pocket."

"Fingerprints?"

"Don't worry. No one will trace it back to me."

"How?"

"Let me finish," she said. "I stabbed him in the neck. He bled all over my body. That's why there was so much blood. Then I cut him up."

Jin resisted a gag. "Still doesn't explain the fingerprints. Or, your ankle. The way you are saying things makes it look like there was no struggle between you and him other than the time when he caught you first."

"That's because you haven't seen the second body."

Jin stared at her, dumbfounded. "There is a second body?"

"Of Maia. I needed to put the blame on someone. I messed up, I knew. I needed to kill him in a way that would not trace him back to me. But I lost control a little bit and mutilated him, which is shameful since I do not lose control usually. I called Maia with his phone and told her I was in trouble. I told her not to tell anyone anything and asked her to meet me there."

"Nes, you did not!"

"I did, Jin. I killed her. She struggled quite a lot. I never thought she had it in her. She is… was Indian, so it was fitting. Yes, the police will look for the mysterious killer who killed the serial killer, but surely, a graduate high school student cannot be the suspect, right?" she smiled. 

Jin thought for a moment why he was helping her, why he as a person who wanted to do the right thing helped a killer and why he could not just turn her in. He knew everything about Nes. Every single thing. But when he looked at her, he knew he could not betray her. Never her. 

She would kill fifty innocent people and he would stand by her to wipe the blood off her face.