Another name for a baby crow is a fledgling, it is called that during the time in a bird's life when it is grown enough to leave the nest but is still fed and protected by their parents. In many ways Lucy Hart is a fledgling, a newborn Crow discovering the world on her own while still under her Dad's thumb. In her search to understand herself she turned to Jasper Dent, another child of a serial killer that managed to overcome his parents and is somehow leading a normal life. Jazz's life isn't as normal as Lucy imagines it to be. After facing both of his serial killer parents in one night Jazz is barely functioning on his own. He abandoned his mission to hunt killers and is honestly just trying to stay alive. However everything changed when he got an email from Lucy Hart asking for his help. Jazz can't leave this girl in the same hell he grew up in so he decides to do everything he can to save her. However the Crows have begun a new game, one more dangerous than ever. With the competition to become the King Crow in full throttle Jazz would have to face every single Crow in existence to save a single girl. Lucy isn't helpless but with her father's grip still around her psyche she is unsure of how to help anyone, including herself. Jazz's story inspired her to set out on her own path but she is surrounded by Crows all more than willing to kill her the moment she shows weakness. Will Jazz ever dismantle the Crows and find Lucy? Will Lucy give up her humanity and become a Crow? Will either of them survive?

Chapter 1

Jazz wondered why he even to bother to keep an email account as he shuffled through the crap people send him. Everyone important to him had his cell phone number, even when he got a new phone he kept the old number. Besides email was way too easy to track down. No matter what account name he chooses eventually someone finds his email.

It got a lot worse ever since the memoir came out, god he loathed its very existence. At the time he'd been able to justify it; all the crap that his parents put him through made college pretty much impossible and he had to have some money to live on. So the book seemed the easiest way to survive. Besides he kept a lot of stuff out of it, things that were no one's business, thing about his— Ugly J.

Touch me like that, there Japer.

Jazz shook his head slightly feeling nauseous. The memories always haunted him, the voices of his parents screaming in his head constantly. Ever since that night with his parents, where it all ended, all his repressed memories assaulted him. In his every dream and even while he was awake his past haunted him. Jazz swallowed hard and turned his attention back to the computer screen.

Most of the emails went straight to the trash if they came from an unrecognized address. However the subject line on one of the emails caught his eye; it read "Jack Dawes". Jazz froze. At the police's request, he purposely kept most of the details about the inner workings of the Crows out of his memoir. Jazz clicked onto the email.

From:mybleedinghart

To: jazzwazhere

Subject:Jack Dawes

Dear Jasper Dent,

I'm going to assume the subject got your attention. I read "your" book, but you didn't write it did you? It seemed too objective at times, like there was no emotion in the memories. I have a question for you: why didn't you kill them? If I had your opportunity I wouldn't hesitate. I would kill my father in a second if I could but I'm scared. The Crows know me, I've met a few of them. They'd come after me if I killed him. Can you help me? Please save me from my father. I don't want to become him. I want to be like you. I want to be human. To have a soul. Can you give one to me? Don't go to the police. He'll kill me if he finds out I contacted you. You can reach me at this number, leave a message and a number if I don't answer. 235-998-6171. P.S. If you cannot tell me who Jack Dawes is then don't bother calling.

From,

Lucy

Attached to the email was a picture of a girl younger than him, she looked fifteen maybe sixteen. The lighting in the photo was horrible, Jazz suspected she did it on purpose. The girl was staring at the camera with wide blue eyes, blonde curly hair spilling over her shoulders. Spread out in front of her was a bunch of small seemingly meaningless pieces of junk. A necklace, earring, a card (either a drivers licenses or credit card), a ribbon, and others: Trophies. Jazz counted 14 trophies in the pile, he was almost certain a girl as young as the one in the picture couldn't kill that many people but female serial killers had been surprising him lately so he didn't dismiss the possibility.

After Jazz had dealt with his parents he promised Connie he'd be done with the serial killer stuff for good. Connie, he missed her. They hadn't talked in more than a week. Jazz called her last night but she didn't answer. She had been missing his calls more and more often. It didn't surprise Jazz at all, he knew their contact would be limited the moment Connie told him she was going to New York. She hadn't asked him to come and Jazz was just happy he didn't have to say no.

Jazz picked up the phone knowing Connie would kill him when she found out but dialed the number from the email anyway. The phone went immediately to voicemail, most likely turned off. "Hey Lucy, this is Jasper Dent. I think we need to talk. Honestly I'm not sure if I believe your story, sorry I get a lot of messages from crazy people. I'll tell you what, if you can convince me that your Dad is a serial killer I'll see what I can do to help you out". Jazz said into the phone. He kept his voice calm making sure to add a bit of a challenge to the last sentence. Afterwards Jazz hung up the phone and wondered what the hell he got himself into.

Lucy loved it when he left her by herself. Every few months Daddy would go off to some new town on a 'business trip'. Sometimes he would take her with him from the start, a father-daughter pairing was less suspicious but other times he'd leave her alone. She could never be too certain if she was really alone. Daddy could come home unannounced either done with that particular alias or he decided to bring her for a lesson. Less often but occasionally one of the others showed up, Lucy had met three of them not counting Daddy, three Crows. But Daddy's been gone for longer than usual he's competing. Daddy decided long ago that he wanted to become the King Crow and right now the position was open.

Lucy sat in the crawl space, it deep within Daddy's closet and hidden inside was the trophies. Normally Lucy wasn't allowed to be near them on her own. Daddy was protective of his toys. She knelt in front of the lone shelf, placing each souvenir back on their specific places. It was almost a month ago that Lucy decided to contact Jasper Dent. She wasn't really sure why, wasn't sure if she even wanted to leave Daddy. Jasper Dent was famous, the son of two serial killers who had overcome both nature and nurture and taken them down.

Lucy wasn't like Jasper, Daddy wasn't even related to her. He reminded her that constantly after what happened to the Dent family. "The only reason Billy and Janice were caught was because they let their affections for their son cloud their judgement" Daddy told her a thousand times, "lucky for us, I don't have that problem". At this point in the story Daddy would put his hands around her neck without squeezing. "I love you, sweetheart but if you cross me I won't hesitate to give you the most painful death I have ever created. You will be my legacy whether you're living or not" his voice was cold and he'd squeeze just for a moment to remind her that he holds her life in his hands.

If Daddy found out she was trying to contact Jasper he'd kill her. There was no logical reason to take this risk but Lucy needed to talk to him, just for a moment. She'd been searching through the Dent family fan sites, and had found several possible emails that people claimed belonged to Jasper Dent. At first she sent an email to every one of those emails claiming to be a Crow. Two of the emails came back saying the domain did not exist, all of the other emails got an immediate enthusiastic reply expect for one. The last email didn't even bother to reply.

The last email was the best shot at being the real Jasper, anyone who knew anything about the Crows would know that they wouldn't be stupid enough to say they were a Crow. Then Lucy sent another email to the address; including the code usually used by the Crows and a picture of her surrounded by some of Daddy's souvenirs. Lucy crawled out of the crawl space. The light in her Daddy's bedroom was overly bright and Lucy blinked a few times. She walked out the room and into the kitchen. The house was single story, and had only two bedrooms.

Lucy slipped on a jacket then exited her house. Even with Daddy gone Lucy wasn't stupid enough to keep anything related to Jasper Dent or a normal life in her house. There was an abandoned asylum on the outskirts of town. Teenagers sometimes went inside on dares and there were always rumors circulating around town about it being haunted. Lucy was only fourteen and Daddy was always particular about her staying out of the system so she wouldn't dare try to drive without an adult in a car. Instead she rode her bike over to the asylum.

The faded sign in the front read 'Soul's Asylum: A resting place for weary minds'. Lucy wondered if she counted as a weary mind, an insanity plea may come in handy in the future. Hiding the bike under the bushes behind the sign, Lucy walked to the one of the lower windows, it was already half open so pushing it up was easy enough. The screen had been cut away long ago so Lucy was able to pull herself straight through. The inside of the asylum was just as run down as its exterior. Lucy had entered in one of the patient rooms. The floor creaked under her feet with every step and when Lucy entered the hall the creaking grew louder. She walked with slow careful steps until she reached a staircase. Lucy grimaced at the stare case but started climbing downward.

At the bottom of the stairs there was another door with a padlock on the outside. Lucy pulled her wallet out of the pocket of her jacket and removed a set of lock picks from one of the slots meant for credit cards. Picking locks was something, Lucy loved doing. There was something beautiful in the simplicity of the movements all building up to such a faint click. Lucy pulled the now open lock off the latch and yanked the heavy door open loudly. Once inside she immediately closed to door behind her. There was a few tables inside and more locked cabinets that Lucy never bothered to look inside of. She grabbed her backpack that she stowed on top of one of said cabinets and dumped its contents on one of the tables.

Lucy picked up her burner phone and turned it back on. There was a voicemail. Lucy smiled and played the message. "Hey Lucy, this is Jasper Dent. I think we need to talk. Honestly I'm not sure if I believe your story, sorry I get a lot of messages from crazy people. I'll tell you what, if you can convince me that your Dad is a serial killer I'll see what I can do to help you out" said a young male voice. It sounded similar to the footage she'd seen of Jasper Dent's testimony in the Hat-Dog case but she couldn't be sure. Lucy didn't even think about it, she just redialed the number.

"Hello" answered the voice, it was certainly the same voice as the message.

"Who is John Dawes" Lucy demanded. This was her trump card, her insurance that this was the real Jasper Dent.

"No one, it's a message between Crows, jackdaw is another word for crow" he said. She recognized this tone of voice, Daddy used it often to keep people calm and she could easily recreate it. Lucy choked back a sob, she'd found him. It never really occurred to her that she'd actually find him, she only really thought to look. "Your name is Lucy right?" he asked after a moment of silence.

"And yours is Jasper Dent" Lucy replied once she composed herself.

"I guess I passed your test. Can you pass mine?" he asked.

"When I was seven, my Dad was killing people in a small town in Louisiana, the media called him Dracula. He was draining the blood of young girls and leaving their bloodless corpses in churches" she purposely kept her voice timid and scared, but started to lose herself in the memory. "I wasn't allowed to help with killing but he had me help with the clean up. Daddy left me alone in the abandoned house he was killing in, everything was covered in plastic to make cleaning up blood easier. I ended up finding one of the buckets filled with the latest girl's blood, and started playing in it just as easily as if it were water. I can still remember how it felt against my skin so warm almost as if it was still living. Daddy laughed when he found me" I finished my story though it continued to play out in my mind after I stopped talking.

"At least you've got good instincts sweetheart, but right now you're a walking evidence trail. You have to learn control, no amount of fun is worth being trapped for the rest of you life" Daddy told me after he found me. Then he locked me in a dog cage for 12 hours to prove his point and true enough I developed a mild claustrophobia, I cannot handle being trapped anywhere.

"I remember that case" Jasper said into the phone. "I'm not sure if that story counts as proof" he added as an after thought.

"There were ten victims under that M.O. I don't their names, Daddy always told me names were meaningless. Just labels given for the understanding of toys" Lucy said, her voice was stronger now.

"People matter and their names make them real to everyone around them" Jasper said with conviction.

"The first victim was a red barrette, Daddy bought me one just like it afterwards. The second one was a nail file. The third one was a bangle…" Lucy listed off the victims labeling each victim by the souvenir taken from them.

"And you have all of them" Jasper asked.

"At my house, I couldn't risk talking to you from there" Lucy explained.

"I'll look into your story and call you later if I can confirm it" Jasper said.

"Okay. Please, don't tell anyone I called you" Lucy pleaded, "He won't hesitate to kill me, I swear" she added desperately.

"I won't tell anyone about you" Jasper said, he sounded completely earnest however that set Lucy on edge. Both of them ended the call and wondered if they could really trust the other.