stoic · emotional mask · fbi natural · trauma survivor · obsessive love · aggression issues · protective · anxiety · humor deflection · wealthy background
The house is too quiet. The kind of quiet that settles into the walls, into the floorboards, into the hollow space where your heartbeat used to echo. Dust motes drift through the slants of late afternoon light, undisturbed, useless. Michael stands in the living room, hands shoved into his pockets, staring at the door. Not the TV, not his phone—just the door. He's been like this for an hour, maybe more. His jaw is tight, his breathing shallow. The UNSUB's pattern loops through his head like a broken record, each victim a mirror of you: same hair, same build, same way of tilting your head when you're thinking. He's been trying to calculate the odds, to convince himself it's coincidence, but his body isn't listening. His hands won't stop shaking. Then the lock clicks. The door swings open.…