Twisted

Author's Notes: A one shot consisting of 3 storylines that connect to a main one. For clarity purposes, there is different formatting styling so you know which storyline. As a side note, the various storylines do not follow the same time. Meaning a story line could be years apart from each other. They do converge at one point eventually though. You'll see as you read.

Italics: Story line 1

Regular: Story line 2

Bold: Story line 3

Disclaimers and warnings: The characters do not belong to me. The story does and it exists in an alternate universe. MAJOR WARNING: THIS IS A VERY DARK STORY.

"He's diverted from his usual." The man said.

He quirked an eyebrow. "These type of killers don't normally deviate from their usual targets. How can you be sure it's not a copycat?"

The first man mulled over this for a minute, turning the pages of the file carefully. He knew it was the same killer, he just had to prove it. Finally, he answered: "Usually when a killer deviates from his usual line of targets, it is because there is another trauma. The psychological break causes new obsessions to rise that need to be sated. In the Rose Killer's situation, the methods and trademark are all the same. It's the target that has changed."

"She's changed." The woman stated, throwing the folder down on the desk of the unsuspecting man.

"What do you mean?"

"The appearance of her latest target was almost completely different from her first two."

"It could be a possible copycat." He suggested.

Shaking her head, she retorted: "The personality profiles are the same. It's just the looks. Maybe it wasn't about the looks that her victims have in common, maybe it's the personality. The evidence to support this is her next victim, different looks again but same personality profile."

The man nodded and the two discussed further ways on how to proceed with the investigation. Where could the Moon Killer be now?

They bumped into each other in New York City, the big apple of the Empire State. For a moment when their eyes clashed, time went still. This is how they know they've found their next one. They're both charming enough and they know it, so while they are exchanging flirty banter, their eyes are appraising.

Tall with dark hair and sinful azure eyes, she can see the corded muscles from where he has rolled up his dress shirt to the elbows. His smile is wicked and he looks so delicious, she knows she must have him. He looks just like the prince charming women hold other men up to. And he will be her lucky number 7. The finale, she had promised herself once. And oh what a grand finale it would be, she thinks to herself. He is so perfect, so fitting to everything she's dreamed of. She can tell, despite the banter he spouts to keep up with her, that he is a dark creature. She'll show him the light, bring a permanent sunshine to his life. That's all she wants to do and she'll make lucky number 7 the best yet.

She looks like she had walked out of a pin up painting with her ankle length silvery blonde hair and sky blue eyes. Her glorious body in that white dress, teasing in the way it clings to her curves, looks like it is the beginning of a naughty magazine's strip tease. Keep turning the pages and more is revealed. Oh she's perfect, lucky number 7. His final piece, because 7 is a lucky number and one he had been determined to achieve. And after 7, he will be done. He will commit himself to the mundane life that everyone around him seems to thrive on.

They finally get around to talking about a first date. When their hands clasp each other in a parting, there are sparks that go off in their minds. Their hearts race and this is how they know they have chosen the perfect ending to a beautiful story they had written.

Lucky number 7 indeed.

"I'm Serenity." She says with an innocent smile, inside she is smirking in triumph.

"Endymion."

"The list of his victims goes as follows: Serena, Usagi, Minako, Rei, and Beryl." He points to the respective pictures as he lists the names. Shuffling the picture into a particular pattern, he begins to explain why he thinks each victim are connected to the same killer to the group panel who will be helping him catch the serial killer.

"Three of his victims matched the same look. Young, blonde and blue eyed. The personality profiles we got from questioning their loved ones told us each girl was innocent and happy go lucky. From what we can determine, the Rose Killer is a few years older than these three judging by the nature of secrecy. All their friends and family said they knew the victims were seeing a man but that this man did not attend school with the victims."

Shuffling the pictures again, he continued. "He changed his preference after Minako to someone with darker features. Same age though and while her nature was much more serious, she was still quite innocent. This threw us off the trail for quite some time, we thought that maybe the Rose Killer was really a serial pedophile until Beryl came next."

"She is the serious questionable." The boss said. "She has completely different features from the other victims and she seems to be of closer age to the Rose Killer. Judging from this, the Rose Killer must be an attractive and successful man of mid 20s. The reason why she is grouped with the victims is because of how each victim was killed."

The boss nodded at the first man to announce how these victims were killed. The man posted up new pictures of each victim in a straight line. His audience gasped and started muttering. He spoke above the noise.

"Each victim's face was mutilated with multiple gashes, which we have determined through intensive investigating, caused by rose thorns dipped in heavy chemical poison. Finally, the trademark red rose, also dipped in the same poison, was stabbed through the heart of each victim's vena cava through an open chest wound inflicted."

"Darien, Mamoru, Seiya, Diamond, and Andrew. These are the Moon Killer's victims' names. One of the only things these gentlemen shared was the similarity in ages, mid to late 20s. The first three all bore a similar appearance."

Another pointed at the images of Darien, Mamoru, Seiya, and Diamond. She explained that four of the victims had similar personality profiling: tragic, troubled, lonely, and still very successful. She then explained why Andrew was a list of victims.

"We are not quite sure why the killer targeted Andrew. Nothing about him except his age matches with the profiles of the other victims. He is in the list though because of the method of killing. We must assume all possible victims who bear the same forensic evidence to be from the same killer and not a copycat."

"And how were these men killed, ma'am?" An agent asked.

The woman pressed her lips thinly together, her face a grave picture. "The gentlemen were burned, not enough so that their features could not be recognizable, but enough to feel severe pain. Finally they were suffocated and imprinted with a crescent moon on their forehead. This is why the woman is known as the Moon Killer."

The desire was all consuming. Each touch sent their bodies into haywire. They were in love. Each clash of blue on blue and they could see the beautiful madness beneath the mask of normalcy.

Oh they've been in love before. But the memories of it, of the others, were like playing pretend compared to the tornado of emotions and thoughts wrecking inside of them. It was delicious and they need more and more and more.

"Oh, Endy, Endy." She's breathless, as if she's run miles and miles without stopping and they've only been kissing. "You're just so perfect, so…"

"Like me." He responds, cradling her face. He's heard how perfect he is before, from other lips. And still, the words have never pleased him as much as she whispers it. Even better that he feels like he's found THE one. Despite this, he wonders and wonders, is she really just like him? That madness that he sometimes sees lurking behind those happy go lucky innocent eyes, could it be alike to his own? Or is it the itch? That maddening itch that is clawing at him, screaming just to see some blood on her face? Is that itch, the one he hasn't sated yet, the one deluding him into thinking she's like him? For now, Endymion doesn't dwell on it.

Oh such beauty. And they are rough with each other and yet, so so gentle. They fit so perfectly together. They make such a beautiful symphony of moans in this dark night. Serenity leaves imprints of her fingers in him, tiny half crescents on the back of his shoulders. He bruises her with his teeth and lips and tongue, heavy splotches of blood beneath the skin. They consume each other in their lust and their love, scalding themselves with it.

And still, they can't get enough despite the fireworks that dazzle them behind their eyelids.

"He's gone three years without a single victim."

"Maybe he's gotten better at hiding the bodies."

The man shakes his head as he stares out at the tiny buildings beneath him. He watches the people walk the streets, looking nothing like ants crawling in the grass. How could they possibly know the horrors that exist in someone who could be right next to them?

"Serial killers who are that brutal in killing their victims don't get better at hiding bodies. They like the attention they receive when people speculate on what they deem as their art. He hasn't killed. He normally kills every year."

There is a heavy silence in the room. What could one think? Could the Rose Killer be dead? Could he have finished what he deemed his life's work?

"Three years! Three years and NOTHING!" She shouts. "Not even a single clue on how this woman even looks like! She's probably murdered more and we're just incompetent to find the bodies."

The other woman watches passively as the first paces. She forces the other woman to sit down. Handing her a drink, she walks back around to sit at her desk. When the first woman opens her mouth, to perhaps begin another rant, a glare shuts her up.

"Killers like those don't do subtle. If there was a body, we'd be notified."

"What if the lesser authorities don't think anything of a burned body? What if these bodies have slipped through our fingers?"

"And what can we do? We wouldn't even have a clue on where to look. This woman has killed six victims in six different states. There isn't even a pattern to where she's gone. How do we know where to look?"

"We could look at any suspicious death reports from the states she's already been in. Maybe she's repeated herself."

Shaking her head, she sips the some of the whiskey. "She hasn't ever repeated. She won't repeat. Besides there's 44 other states full of victims to choose from. I'm guessing she wouldn't think it's exciting to go back to something familiar when there is still the unexplored."

And here, they determine that the case has led to a dead end. After all, where can they go without a shard of light to guide them in a direction?

Sometimes they play a game. They'll go on their dates, looking every bit as an in love young couple as everyone else would, and they'll hunt. Their eyes wander and their lips whisper. They contemplate everyone; women and men and sometimes children. They whisper at night all the ways they could combine their methods, like they were sweet nothings after making love.

"Serenity, one o'clock?" He whispers in her ears, pressing a kiss to the delicate shell of the ear she's pierced last month. She'd been meaning to do it but had always been afraid. Endymion makes her less afraid. Serenity's cerulean eyes take in the young woman in the direction her boyfriend and lover had indicated. She's beautiful with light blue hair, short of stature, and her face was buried in books.

She contemplated all the ways she could befriend this woman, all the ways she could entice her into breaking out of the blue haired woman's bubble. All the fun Endymion and her could have with her…alive and dead. But then Serenity's eyes glide back to his and she is enraptured again. It's impossible to think about another when her current target, the one she is consumed with, and the itch associated with it has yet been scratched. Nothing looks as perfect as he does. In reply, she shrugs and smiles.

Endymion smirks and they continue their walk through the bustling city. His hands graze her arm in a teasing manner before lacing their fingers together. Her eyes glitters as she looks for another. She squeals, as if she's found something in a shop window that she's been looking for, and inclines her head in the direction. His eyes scan the crowd before landing on the man who caught her attention. Sandy blonde hair greets him and a hard face, a slim body dressed impeccably as if he was a model.

"He looks like a woman, Ren." He replies. She giggles and presses her body into his arms. And there is a fire consuming him with this action as he feels the curves and the heat underneath the layers that separate them. He licks his lips and turns to look at her.

"Silly, Endy! 'He' IS a woman!"

"I'm not sure I'm into crossdressers." He retorts blandly. This sends her in a fit of giggles and she is so beautiful. Oh what is the point in looking? He wonders. No one could compare. No one has ever or could ever light him up the way she does. And no one could consume him utterly.

Each time they get close to swinging down the ultimate glaive, they become too consume with each other's eyes and the way the blood glistens on them to complete. She looks beautiful after he places a gash on her body in the middle of making love and they both go insane over it. And sometimes, in the morning, she'll burn him with a candle. And the pain makes them both go mad with want and they are tearing at each other's clothes until there is nothing but the blood rushing through their body to take them to completion.

And they continue to play the game of hunting, knowing they could never find another that comes close to the fire kindling between them. They suppose the authorities should feel safe, knowing that these mundane people who could become beautiful with their stroke of art on their bodies will remain mundane. For each time they attempt to close in on a mutually agreed target, all they have to do is look and smile at each other and any itch that has been aroused becomes sated with bodies against one another, lips meshed, and the groans and moans they wring out.

"It's impossible. It's been five years and there's NOTHING!"

"He might as well be dead."

"What the hell could he have died from? This was supposed to be a man, who by now should be in his mid-30's. What could he have died from?"

"Who knows? Life works in strange ways, he could've got hit by a car or something."

"That bastard deserves to die from something worse than getting by a car."

"And what would you have done when you captured him? Administer the lethal dose of poison in his veins?"

With clenching fists and gritted teeth, he bit out: "At least the world would know the monster."

"Absolutely nothing! Not even a dead body that comes CLOSE to her methods! Where the hell is the bitch?!"

"She could be dead."

"What could she have died from? And what sense of justice is that, if she gets to die without even getting her life dragged out to let the world know of her monstrosity?"

"Maybe it's better this way."

The woman turned around. Hair whipping around and her eyes glaring at her superior. "How could you even say that?!" She screamed.

"In the case of Joe Carroll **, his methods were absolutely crazy and disgusting. He hunted women and eviscerated them because he believed in the insanity of art. He thought he was very romantic, following Edgar Allen Poe. He got caught but the press coverage on his case lead to a lot of people coming to him while he was in prison. He then targeted individuals he taught and who visited him in prison to turn them into likeminded fanatical killers."

"He created a cult of serial killers?"

"Yes. He got caught eventually again but the cult is still alive and running. And even if the agency catches members that Carroll taught personally, that doesn't mean those members didn't initiate others"

"So what are you trying to say? It's better that we never know who the Rose Killer is? Why she killed these men? That it's better we never catch her?"

He shook his head. "If I believed these pyschos weren't worth catching, I wouldn't be in the agency. But maybe if we never caught Carroll, he might've never created a cult and therefore, more serial killers. If the Rose Killer is dead, especially at her young age, then she at least wouldn't be able to pass on her legacy to anyone."

There was a pregnant pause as she processed these thoughts. it was a hard truth to think about after all.

The irony is that, in their consumption of each other, they've become just as mundane as those they had wished to enlighten. They can't think of hunting and killing another. The hunger is still there, like the acid that burns through an empty stomach. But they only crave one another and nothing else can placate them. And each time they think they'll finally finish the act, they surprise each other. And they fall deeper in love for no one else in the world could understand them better than each other.

So they continue their guises as normal lovers. They get married, make friends, and have children. But behind closed doors, sometimes they'll indulge in the shedding of each other's blood. And still, their hearts continue to beat and they continue to laugh and smile. Because they're beautiful together and nothing can touch them in the landscape they transpire to in those moments. And no one can understand.

Twisted, but it is still love. And everyone needs love.

Fin.

Author's Notes:

**: Joe Carroll is a FICTIONAL character in the FOX TV show: The Following.

Both the show and several of James Patterson's books inspired me to write this story. I'll be honest, the thoughts of serial killers gives me nightmares. However, their psychological processes intrigue me. I also wondered what if two serial killers fell in love with each other? This is my take on what could transpire.

Let me know what you think.