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Hello, everyone! I just wanted to say thank you to those who sent me kind messages for why I didn't post last week, and thank you for understanding! I appreciate your support so much!! It means a lot to me 😊❤️ Without further ado, I hope you enjoy today's chapter!
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"Will," breathed Jack through the phone, voice tense, "there's been another message, but I don't think you should come."

    "What?" he scoffed, sitting up in bed and pressing the phone against his ear. "Are you insane? Of course I'm coming."

    "You won't like it," said Jack.

    "I haven't liked any of this," he half-lied, brows furrowing. "Send me your location. I'm coming over ASAP."

    "Will, I can't—"

    "I'll be waiting," said Will curtly, and he ended the call, getting ready and walking out the door to his car. As he began rolling down the driveway, a message pinged on his phone.

    Baltimore.

    Will took a deep breath and headed towards the area, knuckles white on the steering wheel and heart racing in anticipation.

...

One hour later, Will arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, meeting police tape and frantic forensics. Will clambered out of his car, ducking under the tape, quickly catching up with the speed and harried nature of the scene. Up ahead stood Jack, and by his side—

    Will's brows furrowed. "Hannibal?"

    Both Jack and Hannibal turned around, but Will's gaze locked on Lecter's. The psychiatrist's eyes were glimmering and dark—ignited with passion and anticipation. Will forced his gaze away and turned towards Crawford, raising a brow.

    "There's two main bodies," said Jack, voice strained. "The other fragments..."

    He trailed off, leading Will into the scene, Hannibal following behind like a shadow. Before him, stretched out on the field, stood two cadavers like totem poles, arms splayed out like scarecrows. The sight pummeled through Will like a wave, nearly making him stagger back, a shiver running through him as Hannibal rested a hand on his arm.

    "Jesus," muttered Will, staring at the elevated corpses. Jack shook his head, knowing he shouldn't have let Will see the scene.

    Will walked around the two bodies, stomach coiling with both disgust and admiration. Both bodies held the final letters 'O' and 'W.'

    "I am here now," he whispered, shuddering.

    The first body's head had been carved open—her skull like a bowl to eat out of. Holes gaped from either side of her head, and individual hands, feet, limbs, arched from the openings, arching up into the sky to form the letter 'O.' Each piece was stitched together with artful precision and spoke with power, authority, and foreboding—but also emptiness and cold.

Her face was skinned off exactly like Abigail's signature. Where the mouth would have been gaped a circle of torn flesh—filled with black lilies that gushed forwards in a deadly bushel. Down her chest glimmered Death's marking—as if he took four fingers and pressed them down into her skin. Farther down her torso also gleamed a clean incision—that which spoke of the Chesapeake Ripper.

Will swallowed, mind whirring at the countless information.

This first body was maimed by the Chesapeake Ripper, Death, and Abigail Hobbs. A terrifying, bloodthirsty union.

He walked over to the next body, ignoring Lecter's and Crawford's gazes, and examined it.
The second body—male—had very similar inflictions like the first. Skull opened up, holes, parts of bodies and limbs protruding from the head to form a letter. This time the letter 'W.'
Will circled around the body, meeting the cadaver's face. Though not skinned like the first, its eyes were gouged from its sockets. Will breathed in, catching the scent of—

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