Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tanner frowns as he rises from the now-pristine, dark floorboards, fresh with the scent of bleach. There was a steady tick of sweat dribbling down his neck, his knees ached, and despite his use of gloves, his palms stung.

All in an honest day's work, he thinks to himself, half joking.

Bruises and sore ribs, guns and needles, sleepless nights...these were the aspects of a contract killer's work process.

This was the reality of a typical case for Tanner. Murder itself could be gruelling work at times, such as when the target managed to fight back, but the following cover-up was just as taxing, if not more. There would always be bodies to dispose of, evidence to clear, and witnesses to kill. In total, it took him a good couple of days, sometimes weeks, to finish a job, when he took into consideration the labour of locating the target, learning their routine, and finding the right moment. 

While the pay was certainly worth it, Tanner couldn't deny that as fun as it was, killing-for-hire was an exhausting process. He appreciated the funds his wealthy clientele provided for the kills, and it got him useful notoriety around the right, underground circles,  but it was a difficult thing to keep up alone. Especially since any mistake could bring his system down, and he'd go with the ship. Tanner's very close to being exposed - his face is already plastered on BOLOS, and there have been scarce, occasional witnesses who slipped his attention. He's been lucky that the authorities have never been able to identify him, that he's never been so much as a suspect in any of the cases he's been responsible for, but he has, on several occasions, gotten very, very close.

He sighs and peels off his gloves, bundling them up and stuffing them into his pocket for now. Tanner gives a cursory look over the floorboards he'd just spent a half-hour scrubbing - sparkling clean. It was impossible to tell that there had just been a bloodied corpse there; mutilated flesh rippled over the room. 

The problem, he thought, was efficiency. He could charge thirty thousand for a murder with the full package - body disposed of, disappearance staged, anything incriminating to the client cleared - but if it were high-profile, it could take him up to several months to get the kill in. His clients got antsy after too long, and problems would start up if he wasn't able to satiate their murderous requests quickly and neatly. When a cheated-on spouse wants their partner killed, he usually can get it done in a week, tops. If they just want the person dead, no corpse removal, he can do that for a quick and easy five grand and get home in time to even start up a new case. But when somebody wants some rich, corporate big-shot taken down, things get complicated. 

It was difficult to run his business alone. He could definitely see how another set of hands and eyes could help him get the workload over with swiftly. An extra person could spot an errant droplet of blood that would incriminate him if not caught, could corner the few targets who manage to make a run for it, could lure unsuspecting abduction targets away, and so on. He didn't need somebody to downright do his job, stalking random people and killing them, but an accomplice to help carry a body or do some internet sleuthing could be instrumental to improving his work. Everything would get done a lot quicker.

Today's job had been particularly difficult. A man had wanted his brother killed for the typical reason, inheritance, but he hadn't been some easy, random person living in suburbia. Rather, the target had been a well-known, rich founder of a bustling company that did a lot of their work overseas. Thus, the target was constantly away for business trips and was never really settled down. He lived in an endless rotation of hotel rooms, making his routine completely unpredictable, giving Tanner no schedule to memorise and take advantage of.

So Tanner had been forced to settle for some good old-fashioned blackmail to get the job done. It had taken several days just to dreg something up - the rich don't stay that way if they don't cover their tracks. But as it turned out, the target, married, had been having an affair. An anonymous text with a location and a promise to tell his wife had the man abruptly cancelling his next trip for a few states over and arriving at a recently abandoned apartment complex. Asbestos had pushed the tenants out, but Tanner still had to get rid of the corpse and clean up the place - for all he knew, the landlord was planning to fix the place up, or a squatter would find the scene and call the police. His client had paid for the full work-up, so it had to be a perfect crime.

But apparently, he hadn't been the only one who showed up with violent intentions. The target had arrived with a firearm. Having hidden in the shadows, Tanner had been able to sneak up on the target, but a fight had still ensued, and Tanner had been forced to use a pocket knife to cut the man's throat, leaving streaks of blood across the walls and floors that had to be urgently cleaned up. 

It would have all been so much easier with an accomplice. Not only could they have helped prevent the not-so-seamless kill, but in the event of one as chaotic as this, they could split the tasks at hand in order to get the work done faster. He could deal with the body while the accomplice would scrub the blood. It would, generally, save Tanner a lot of time and effort in the long run. 

He yawns, stretching out his back. There was still much to be done. The client wanted the body to be completely undiscoverable, so he'd have to properly dispose of it. There was a handy, unguarded trash dump he was considering since he'd been careful not to stash any corpses there for several months. He'd make the typical grave and pile enough trash on top of it to mask the scent. Another two hours of exhausting work.

He goes around the room, collecting various items, such as a bottle of bleach, a box of gloves, etc., before exiting the empty premises. Tanner whistled, lowly and unbothered, as he headed back to his vehicle, the shady, worn streets silent around him. After all, it was still three hours until sunrise. Nobody was up and about. He was glad to be almost done - he'd already done the necessary work to craft the story of the man running off with the woman he'd been having an affair with, who, for convenience's sake, was currently buried a little off of a highway. 

With an assistant, he could've had all this done by midnight, and still have time to knock out a few extra hours of sleep. 

Sleep, hm? That got him thinking about the time again - just about three in the morning. Nobody was awake. 

Actually, scratch that. Tanner knew exactly who would still be up this late. 

...He thinks carefully about his assistant idea.

-

He shows up at Luna's house the next night with his intentions set. Cool air bristling around him, he casually walks through her gardens without any attempt to be stealthy or even quick. If Luna's up, then she'll recognise him from the cameras, and if she's asleep, then, of course, there would be no problem with entering the home. Either way, he was getting inside, whether she liked it or not. 

Pale light spills out of her front windowsills, sourced from her computer, kept at maximum brightness permanently, probably to keep her awake. So she was up, then. 

Veiled in nighttime darkness, he creeps closer to her window, taking her in. She was unkempt, exhausted, and clearly minutes away from collapsing - she was probably already several cups of coffee in. From the looks of it, she was losing the battle to stay up.

To summarise, Luna looked absolutely drained. 

Tanner certainly understood why. He's watched her thoroughly through the last several weeks and has become accustomed to her self-destructive process - hour after hour spent devotedly scanning case after case after case, offering her own time to track down murderers, child abusers, and other depraved sorts of people, for no charge at all. 

The very opposite of Tanner's services.

It spoke volumes of Luna's genuine, selfless nature that she was still keeping her crime watch program up, despite the fact that she'd gotten her goal. She'd found the Blue Blood Killer. She'd gotten justice for his victims. Her name was in countless newspapers, and she was praised by all who recognised her, appreciated and adored by the city. Everybody involved in 'True Crime' and law circles knew of the analyst at the DA office who tracked down the notorious serial killer. It was the freshest report for the news to gush over. The hero of the story that the city needed.

But here was the catch. The BBK was identified but never located - the man was on the run and had done quite well to cover his tracks, at least from what errant rumours Tanner had heard. 

Tanner's (and Luna's) work to find him had been for nothing. The Blue Blood Killer was known, warrants out for his arrest and BOLOS everywhere you looked, but he still wasn't caught. He'd gotten away with it. He could still easily be active - any of the countless missing persons reports that flooded the city on a daily basis could be the killer's doing. 

Luna had gotten close, but she still didn't have that complete, utter closure that the man responsible for terrorising the city was behind bars. Not to mention how he was certain that she was irked by the fact that no matter what the DA's office and press believed, no matter what her program had accomplished - which, don't get him wrong, was a lot - the credit Luna finally got for it all technically wasn't all hers. Yes, she had been the one to create the watch program, and she had gotten justice for hundreds of people wronged by the various criminals she'd caught, but it had been Tanner who retrieved the information on the Blue Blood Killer. 

Which, of course, had the downside of having him dangerously indebted to Adam (a name that nobody dared to say). 

But every downside had its silver lining. Yes, he had the unfortunate risk of owing Adam weighing on him, however - 

Luna was indebted to him.

He moves from her windowsill, still unseen - Luna was far too tired to be completely alert - and moved around her house to her bedroom. He picks her lock and successfully enters, still not caught. He'll go through the hallway and sneak up on her. 

He tightly grasps his midazolam syringe. 

Tanner wants to cash in on his favour. 

A smirk lines his lips as, silent as ever, he takes practised footsteps out of her bedroom into the hall. He gives a customary glance to the now-familiar painting at the end of the hallway, a disturbing depiction of a crimson face, before quietly walking past the four matching doors. There's a sort of unnerving feeling to the layout of Luna's house - sharp corners, spaces that go unseen from most angles, and buggy lighting that routinely switches off make for the innate feeling of being watched. There was an abundance of hiding spots. Your average criminal and a child wanting to play hide-and-seek could definitely agree that it was convenient. 

He knows her house like the back of his hand. He has it all memorized down to the finest details. Three cameras rigged around the exterior have watched his pursuits for days. A switch to reset the power in her storage room, and a matching one but for a WIFI router in her bedroom, both of which she had to periodically visit throughout the night to reset, given that her home's wiring was less than optimal. A lock on the front door and every window (which he noticed had all been replaced since their meeting, though it would do nothing to deter him.) He even knew exactly which floorboards of hers creaked when stepped on and naturally evaded them. 

Without making a single sound, Tanner reaches the end of the hall. He watches Luna's frame, still at her desk. He could tell by her beaten posture how tired she was, feel the palpable exhaustion that radiated off of her. She needed a break. 

He'd planned to keep their conversation in her lounge this time, but perhaps it would be wiser to let her have a few hours of rest first. 

It isn't until he's right behind her that she notices his presence. There's a slow, deliberate moment in which her shoulders tense and her back straightens out. It's a slight, imperceptible movement, which nobody would notice - but he does. After all, he always has his eye on her. 

Oh, well. No point skirting around it any longer.

"Don't worry," Tanner starts calmly. "This will be just like last time. However, I don't think you'll be coming back." 

He hears the minute, choked sound of her breath hitching in her dainty little throat. Luna was silent, probably engrossed in figuring out her escape odds. But that's a losing game - they both know she doesn't have the time to get away. She'd fallen into his clutches already, and he'd done it so easily, so deftly, that it's abundantly apparent that even when this first started, with him circling the perimeter of her home on a nightly basis, she never had a chance.

"Before I'd spoken, what gave me away, Luna?" He asks curiously as he raises the needle, already filled with just the right dosage to knock her out for a few hours. "A passing footstep that you tried to excuse for some other sound? A slight shift of fabric? Perhaps my breath, right at your throat?" 

"Or..." He leans over her, his chin brushing past her dark waves, immensely enjoying how he gets a clear view of her shaking fingers. "Could you just sense that feeling...that human instinct...that nagging in the back of your mind that tells you..." 

He readies the syringe. 

"...that you are not alone?" 

He administers it rapidly, right behind her ear - just like last time -  and watches as she initially tries to struggle, hurriedly clamouring up. 

"Nice try!" He encourages. His hand shoots out, clasping around a pale, exposed shoulder. The drugs kick in, and she goes slack, collapsing back into her seat. 

In her last seconds of consciousness, Luna gasps: 

"You."

"In the flesh." He grinned, reaching out to shut off her PC. As he hooks his hands beneath her waist, beginning to carry her limp body, he errantly wonders how long it will be before somebody reports her missing. He'll bet a few days, at least. When she stops showing up for work - because it was very unlike devoted, ambitious, Luna Youngman to stop running her program and dealing with cases at the DA'S. She was a hard worker, after all.

He's sure he made the right choice for his partner-in-crime.

Yes. She'll do nicely, indeed. 

Chapter Text

The first thing Luna’s aware of is that her head fucking aches. 

What starts as a barely noticeable graze shifting over her temples starts to swell deeper. The hazy film she’s drifting through starts to fuzz over with swirls dotting her vision like static TV as awareness starts to coax its way back into her body. 

It isn’t long before a light pressure in her skull surmounts into burning pain. She feels herself wince, absently hears the low grumble that escapes her lips as her body starts to shift.. 

When Luna finally opens her eyes, the world sways, the canvas of the ceiling blending in with the floaters that interweave with her vision. Her fingers slip over clean, soft sheets and find their way to her face, rubbing over her skin before shifting through her hair as she blinks awake. 

The last dregs of sleep ebb further, further down her body until they’ve almost fully dissipated. The headache lightened, somewhat, but she could still feel the forefront of her head pulsing with the migraine. 

Get Tylenol, she registers, her first conscious thought in what feels like millennia, get Tylenol, then go back to sleep. 

But such a task requires leaving the haven of her duvet, which was an unpleasant task, but then again, allowing the migraine to continue would be agonising.

Five more minutes, she figures. By then, she’ll have summoned the energy to go about her day. She’s got a busy day ahead of her. Work to do at the DA’s. Errands to run at the supermarket. Countless reports to sift through…

She sighs, then shifts her sleeping position, rolling to her side to face the wall. Her eyes roll to stare at the floor-to-ceiling windows, gazing at the slither of the city horizon that peeks out between the drawn curtains, before she lets her eyelids fall closed. Five more minutes and she’ll be fine. Maybe ten. That’s all she needs.

The haziness reenters her peripherals as she starts to succumb to the grips of rest, but as she always does before going to sleep, she instinctively wonders if she’s remembered to lock the front door and all the windows, when it dawns on her. 

Floor-to-ceiling windows, a trace of skyscrapers blinking out every so slightly from the gap between the curtains…

She wasn’t home. Her skin suddenly stiffens, prickling over with goosebumps. It was too cool. An air-conditioner was running. She didn’t have air-con in her bedroom. 

Luna’s eyes snap open at once. Every exhausted bone in her body is replaced as alertness rushes over her in a tidal wave. She doesn’t even register herself moving before her upper torso is jolting upwards to sit, bringing a duvet that is not hers pooling around her waist, and her gaze snaps to the corner of the room.

And, unbothered, his back to her as he types away at a desktop, sits a frame she’s unfortunately familiar with. 

That’s when it all comes back to her, hitting her like a bullet straight to her chest. She can remember precisely how it had all gone down.

She had picked up on the faint change in the air, heard the passing footstep, that minute shift as his shoes softly landed over her hardwood. As quiet as a church-mouse, and as unseen as one, too, because she hadn’t noticed him until he’d been right behind her, and by then, her odds were out of her favour. She couldn’t reach a weapon in time. She was nimble, quick-footed, yes, but there wasn’t enough space to get around him without him catching her. And then there was the issue of what he planned to do with her. If he tried to lethally attack, she might have a decent chance of squirrelling her way out of it before he could land too many hits, but if he was trying to capture her-

But the overthinking was her downfall, because she hadn’t even risen from her seat before there was a syringe piercing her skin.

He’d won. That smug fucker had won for the second time in a row. 

Luna takes a steadying breath and surveys her surroundings. While he hadn’t noticed her yet, she had an edge, and she wouldn’t let that advantage slip out of her fingers. 

It was a fairly lavish, modernistic apartment bedroom. Maybe even a penthouse. It was clean, yes - sparkling hardwood floors, a spotless grey rug, and from what she could see between the pale curtains, the widowsills were glittering, but the place was surprisingly not as tidy as she’d expect. A rumpled shirt here, some disorganised clutter there. Not that there was anything wrong with it - given the state of her house, she certainly couldn’t talk - but she’d come to associate an acetic sterility with him. Maybe it was the combed hair and ironed lab coat, or the suave smoothness of his words combined with the piercing stare of his eyes, but Tanner was almost…mechanical. Like he’d been plucked right out of American Psycho.

Slowly, with whatever precision she can muster, Luna starts to inch her way out of the bedsheets. There’s no way for her to reach the bedroom door without getting Tanner’s attention - she supposes her best bet is to slowly move through the room, and once she’s spotted, run like hell, hoping every obstacle she encounters is unlocked. 

Her breath hitches as she cautiously pushes the duvet off her legs, gently allowing her feet to touch the carpeted floor. She stares at Tanner as she carefully comes to a stand. He’s still busy at the computer. 

It isn’t until she takes his first steps that Tanner decides to make it clear that he’s noticed she’s awake. 

“You’re up later than I expected,” he says. Almost…cheerily. He doesn’t even look back at her.

But Luna stands there, aghast and wordless as she weighs her options. She could entertain speaking with him, and try to negotiate her way out of whatever it is he wants, or make a run for the door. 

“But ultimately, just in time,” Tanner continues, “Which is convenient. I didn’t want to wake you, but we’ve got places to be.” 

Luna’s fists clench, and she takes a shuddering breath. “What do you want?” 

Finally, Tanner swivels his chair around to look at her, grinning like a cat. “Typical you. No time for pleasantries, hm?”

“Why am I here, Tanner?” She says through gritted teeth, and her eyes land back on the door. Since he’s still sitting down, she might have a head start. “I thought we were done-”

“We weren’t, and you knew that.”

His voice, suddenly cuttingly sharp, distracts her. Luna’s gaze snaps from the doorway, back to Tanner. “It’s the Blue Blood Killer files, right? You want payment.”

“Oh, you don’t have to be so transactional about it,” says Tanner, and all of a sudden, he’s back to his calm, joyous self. The sharp, menacing tilt of his grin becomes emblazoned in her mind. “Of course, I am collecting what I’m owed, but there’s no need to treat this like we’re strangers.” 

“I wouldn’t call us friends.” 

His eyes don’t leave hers. She understands that she should feel very, very threatened, just by being in the same room as him. 

“Oh, but we can be, Luna,” he says, and his voice is just too light, just too soft, as he vocalises her name. “Friends, and so much more. But before that…think of us more like…partners.”

“Partners?” Luna repeats, folding her arms across her chest. “And what, exactly, do you think that means?”

“Oh, you know,” he shrugs, “Companions. Allies. I’m partial to the phrase ‘accomplices.’”

Accomplices. That meant he was thinking about crime. 

For not the first time tonight, Luna asks, “What do you want?”

“As I said. I just want to collect what I’m owed,” Tanner insists, and rises to stand. “You owe me for those files I got for you, and I’ve come up with the perfect way for you to pay me back.”

Luna’s eyes dart back to the door. “Is it money you want?” 

“No, of course not,” he dismissed, “No amount of cash would suffice for the labour that went into obtaining that information for you, Luna. However… some hard work of equal value would be enough.”

“Hard work?” Luna furrows her brows. Dread claws at her gut. She’ll have to keep her cards close to her chest and play Tanner’s game right - her life is probably on the line. “What kind of work?” 

She had a bad feeling about what Tanner’s concept of ‘hard work’ might entail. Prostitution, likely. If Tanner had enough influence to obtain the BBK files, he must have been a powerful figure in the criminal underworld. An important drug dealer, or gang leader, or worse.

He simply stares at her, maintaining his cheshire grin. “You’ve probably got an idea of what I do for a living.” 

“Let me guess,” she says, and her mouth feels dry as she ponders the implications of their conversation, “Sex trafficking?” 

He shakes his head. “Not at all. I’ve dabbled in my fair share of abductions when necessary, but I’m not overly involved in those circles. That’s not my preferred work. But if you’ll come take a look at my PC, maybe you’ll understand my specialities.” 

Cautiously, she takes a step forward, then another. She keeps as much distance as possible as she maneuvers around him, before finally landing at his desktop. She gnaws on her inner cheek anxiously as she looks away from him in order to stare at the screen. 

Her mouth goes numb at the sight. 

There’s some sort of dark web email system open on his PC. There were a few lines of text for an unsent email Tanner had been writing, but most importantly, there was an image attached. 

A man’s body, brutalised and killed, gore flecking over the camera screen. 

She’s seen numerous corpses before in her career, not just in analytical work for the DA, but in pictures in her crime watch programme. But for the first time, she was right next to the killer himself. 

She knew he wasn’t above murder. He was possibly a cannibal, if there was any truth to some of the strange innuendos she’d heard from him. But this…this was direct proof of one of his victims. Maybe this was all some sick, twisted fantasy build-up to Tanner murdering her. Maybe this is the part where she’s meant to start running.

He’s far too close for Luna’s liking, so she starts to move away, backing up as close as she can manage to the door. “What…what are you?” 

“An entrepreneur, of sorts,” he says ambiguously, “But I mostly work as a contract killer. You have no idea how many cases I lost, too busy pursuing you and tracking down Adam to bargain for all that information.”

“I never asked for any of it,” Luna reminds him, fighting to keep herself looking calmer than she was. “I never asked for you to do all that.” 

“But you took the file anyway,” he points out, slyly. “You didn’t have to.”

She’s just about to reach for the door handle when he stops her. 

“I wouldn’t try to escape, if I were you.” 

She pauses. “And why’s that?”

“Entertaining the idea that I let you get away… you’d naturally go to report it. But if you tried to get me into legal trouble, I might have to let it slip that those BBK files were a result of my work,” Tanner warns, but his voice is playful. Irritatingly so. “I’m sure they wouldn’t take kindly to finding that out - or that you’ve known about my crimes for so long, yet haven’t reported it.”

She clenches her fist, and he continues to rattle on. 

“But say you got out, but didn’t report me,” Tanner continues, “I’d easily come and pick you up again.” 

“That’s assuming you found me,” Luna challenges.

Tanner laughs, sounding genuinely entertained. “How adorable! But you underestimate me, Luna. There’s nowhere you could go where I couldn’t find you.” 

“It’d be worth an attempt, though, wouldn’t it?” She points out, before she can let herself become uncertain. 

“If you’re willing to get yourself knocked out for the second time in a row,” says Tanner, “And there’s only so much midazolam you can take.”

By this point, she’s already set on the idea of trying to escape, so she finally turns back to the door. She grips it, turns the handle, and finds that it actually pops open. But before she can break off into a run, Tanner speaks again. 

“Oh, sure. Take your chances,” he suggests, “But that carries a risk.”

“What?” She scowls. “That you’ll come after me and kill me?” 

His smile remains intact, but there’s a promise in his eyes that’s as pointed as his syringe needle. “I’m very patient, but I’ve only got so much. You don’t want to see what happens when I run out.”

“How very threatening,” she mutters. 

“How very threatening indeed,” says Tanner coyly. “And I think I’ve been very generous, haven’t I? I didn’t even put you in restraints.”

“What a gentleman,” she remarks.

“See? There it is!” Tanner claps his hands together enthusiastically. “That spark, that gleam - that fire. That’s you, Luna Youngman.” 

A long, pensive moment passes before Tanner continues, sighing.

“If it weren’t for the time crunch, I’d be very interested in playing the cat and mouse game with you, Luna,” he assures, nauseatingly, “Chasing you down, seeing where you’d hide, catching you. But we can play later. Right now, I need docility. The way I see it…it’s in your best interests to comply.”

But maybe there’s still a fighting chance - somewhere beyond the bedroom where she could hide, somewhere to run, a way to escape…

But Tanner seems to sense she’s still considering running for it. 

“The front door’s locked, we’re on the top floor, so you can’t bust through the window, and we both know if it came to physical combat, I’d overpower you,” he lists off, “Right now isn’t the time to play hide and seek, Luna.”

He stretches out his arm, offering a handshake.

“All I need from you is a little help for my next few cases. Think of yourself as an assistant, if you will. I know you’re capable,” Tanner says. “Decide quick, Luna. You won’t like your other option, and we both know what it is.”

Certain death, she thinks.

Tentatively, Luna reaches out, and they shake hands. 

“Perfect!” Tanner grins. “Now get changed. We’ve got to get moving.”

And with that, Tanner condemns her to a life lived beneath his thumb.

Chapter Text

A tense walk through the open penthouse. A ride down the elevator. An awkward journey across the darkened car park. All done with Tanner hovering just behind Luna, guiding her forward, making the threat of his syringe (and concealed firearm he prefers not to use) very apparent. Then, they’d loaded into his car and set off. 

It had all been done in total silence. If her pale, tightened lips were any indicator, Luna wasn’t feeling up for conversation. 

That suited Tanner fine. He leaves the radio on to break the quiet somewhat, though. It wasn’t good to have too much silence on a first date.

They move seamlessly through the early-morning city without Luna uttering a word. She’s scared out of her mind, though doing very well to hide it, and he’s already picked up on the fact that she’s spent the entire ride plotting out her escape. Her gaze pinned to every street sign, memorising the route they were heading, analysing her surroundings vigorously, and all done while maintaining as much distance from him as possible. 

Luna was horrified already, and she didn’t even know about the cooling, dismembered body sorted into two bags in the car’s trunk. She also didn’t know that she was going to help him bury it. Well, help him carry it to the burial site. He wouldn't make her do too much heavy lifting this early on in their partnership.

Tanner couldn’t judge her. By all means, Luna had the right to be terrified; he knew that. He’d abducted her, and she was smart enough to understand what sort of person Tanner was. Not the type that somebody so centred on justice would willingly involve herself with. Not if she knew what was good for her. 

His fingers drum over the steering wheel. It’s been roughly fifteen minutes so far into the drive to the trash dump where the body would be left. Not much longer to go of the ride itself, but still, there was a lot to get done…

Hm.. . Maybe taking Luna to bury a body was too much, too soon. It was her first day after all, and she was obviously intending to try to get away. Tanner doesn’t blame her. It’s human instinct, but instincts could be ever-so inconvenient. At some point, she’d probably make a run for it, but he’d be well prepared. The odds are in Tanner’s favour in many ways. He guesses they’re similar in speed, maybe she’s even faster than him considering her agility, but his strength clears hers any day. And while she was an evasive creature, he knew the area, and she didn’t. Even if she did manage to get away, he’d find her eventually. Maybe she won’t even want to run, since he has the threat of releasing the truth about the BBK files.

It helps that she won’t have fully metabolised the midazolam in her system yet, which might make her more agreeable, too exhausted to put up much of a fight. He’s got more than enough of the drug to knock her out again if needed. But that didn’t guarantee that it couldn’t all go wrong…was it better to leave Luna in the car? No, that’d be worse; he wouldn’t be able to watch her, and Tanner quite liked to keep his eyes on her…

Tanner allows himself a brief moment to take his eyes off the road to observe Luna. Her hands were running circles over the passenger door handle, but he took the liberty of making sure everything was locked tight. She wasn’t getting away from him that quickly.

Luna had adjusted herself in such a way that she could keep as much distance from him, practically leaning on the door. Her fingers were tightly knotted in her shirt - a faded tee he’d unearthed in her drawers. He may have kidnapped her, but Tanner was a good host, so naturally, he’d prepared a bag of some of her belongings when he’d transported her back to his place. It was the right thing to do. He has manners.

He had debated going back for her PC, but once the proper investigations started, the police would notice if too many of her things had gone missing with her. They can probably work on the same computer, but he might buy her a new one, as an apology for all the items she’d lose once the cops cleared out her house - and that reminded him…

After the body was taken care of, and he spared himself a few hours to catch up on some rest, he’d have to finish up at Luna’s. There was even more to get done there - clearing all evidence he’d ever been there, and then planting some more. 

What a hassle. So much had been done in the past night, and he wasn’t even completely through with his chores.

But he’d admit…Luna was worth it. Of course, she was worth it.

He wagered two days before Luna’s absence was noticed, and maybe four or five before it was investigated. It would shape up to be a huge deal when the authorities realised the woman who could be credited for solving the famous Blue Blood Killer case had abruptly gone missing, right after her big break. Foul play would be suspected, with fingers pointing to the elusive BBK. Tanner was planning to use this to his advantage. 

It would be more than easy to stage an abduction from somebody else , to make it look as if the Blue Blood Killer has come back for some revenge. Some manufactured signs of a struggle, some false leads for the police to follow up on, and it’d be golden. From what he’d heard from his various sources, the BBK was nowhere to be found - no criminal, from the average pickpocket to the most dangerous mobster, had any clue where the notorious murderer had gone. He’d disappeared not just from the public, but from the underground, too. The BBK wouldn’t come forward to disprove the narrative Tanner would arrange. 

Shifting his gaze back to the windshield, Tanner moves from a wide, rampant road to an unseen path. It trails longer and longer into what can aptly be described as the middle of nowhere. A few minutes later, he’s backing up in a shadowy area, parking the car. The place is dark, unsightly, and most importantly, hidden. 

Luna visibly tenses beside him as the engine turns off. For a second, instead of moving, he simply watches her process. Her eyes carefully observe the change in surroundings, cataloguing and assessing every detail from beyond the dash. Calculating her chances of escape, likely.

“Where are we?” Luna says. Her voice was tentative, but controlled.  

“Nowhere particularly notable,” Tanner answers, and reaches out to open his door. “An unmarked, unregistered lot on the city outskirts - very quiet. Not a person in miles.” Except for their bodies.

His description was accurate. They were in front of a small but cramped trash heap, where people had been littering their furniture, tyres, and occasional corpses for ages now. It was off the grid and wasn’t the sort of place people with good intentions visited at this hour. 

He’d discovered the nifty little dump a year or two ago - an anonymous client had been specific about where they wanted their kill buried, providing coordinates. It was nearby and unpopulated, so after lying low for a few weeks in the area, Tanner started to show up every now and then. Not often enough that anything suspicious could be tied to him, but still frequently, to the point that he knew it like the back of his hand. 

What was especially useful to Tanner was that it was a twenty-minute drive back down the unkempt, gravelly road until you’d see another house, and even then, the city outskirts were remote and low populated. Between the rest of the city and the heap, there was nothing but forest, stretching endlessly through the night. Nowhere to run - or, he revises, nowhere safe to run. It was just far away enough from the city that wildlife was prominent, which meant the hunting sort of people had left their pox marks on the land. The forest floor held unforeseen bear traps like hidden landmines, and Tanner had already become familiar with the area, knowing where to step. 

A lot more familiar than Luna is, in any case, which is precisely why he’s being so lenient right now. No restraints, not pointing a gun at her head. Allowing her to carefully open the passenger door and step out into the night air without interference. 

Luna watches him from the other side of his car. Expectantly. Nervous, but prepared - Tanner can see that she won’t be caught off guard again. 

“This shouldn’t take too long,” Tanner assures her casually, stepping around to the boot of the car and dragging it open. Two unassuming, plastic trash bags await.

One has a torso and a head. The other has whatever was left.

He stopped associating people with their bodies after a while. There were humans, and then there was the mess they made when they died. Not synonymous. Humans were difficult, but corpses spoke clearly. They didn’t make a fuss; they simply waited to be put away.

There’s the crunch of footsteps as Luna trudges through the gravel. Her steps are slow. Even. Cautious. Wary, he could say. 

As sharp and as quick as flying darts, his gaze lands on her. Staring back at him, pale, but with a determined set to her brows and a hardness to her eyes that suggested she was ready . Oh, he was wrong if he ever thought tonight would be easy. Very wrong indeed. But he likes that about her - Luna consistently surpassed his expectations. 

It made him dizzyingly giddy.

He enjoys a challenge.

He grabs a bag and then motions towards the other, indicating for Luna to take the second. He watches her intently, seeing her fingers twitch as she stares at it. She’s likely starting to get an idea of what’s inside. 

“That’s a body,” Luna says, without even looking. Shortly. Crisply. In a factual veneer that probably served the purpose of keeping some degree of calmness. As if she’s wrapping her mind around the very concept. “That’s a body we’re carrying.”

“It is,” Tanner affirms patiently. 

There’s a pause. He can see the guards Luna has rigged up, the barrier she’s masked herself in. Years of law enforcement training (which he’s seen catalogued on various old social media accounts) will have taught her how to keep her poker face. Luna Youngman doesn’t crack under pressure; she adapts. She hardens. She stiffens with a marbled overlay that cannot be broken.

Tanner was interested in what lay beneath. 

Tanner wanted to know what errant thoughts ran through her mind like shooting fish on a riverbank. He wanted to know why her lips were held in a taut line, why her posture had suddenly become so straight, why she stretched herself apart for her crime watch programme when there was no conceivable benefit. 

And he does know why. It’s because she’s nothing like him. She’s the compass that he’s long-since skewed off of. But morality is a lesser consideration for Tanner’s goals.

Tanner likes to clean his kills. He likes dismantling, reorganising, observing. Tearing mechanical components from fleshy limbs is no different to him - whatever he holds in latex gloves, sterile machine or rawly organic, Tanner wants to get elbow-deep. Until he can run his fingers along sea-bleached stretches of yellowing bone. Until he understands why the joints click together.

Old romantics want a girl’s heart, and so does Tanner. But he’s interested in every individual atrium.

His exploration of Luna Youngman will be a very prolonged autopsy. A thorough examination into the workings of her mind, the function of her digits. He wanted to know every part of her, in every way. 

He’s already seen the beginnings of the first incisions. Watched as unswayable human instinct leaked through her unbothered charade - she was scared, terrified , right down to her chest. He’s already exposed it. And gradually, as the procedure continues, the rubicund samples of her personhood are being revealed. Tiny sacs of flesh peeking out from her layers of stone. Untarnished and preserved and fresh. He can’t wait to see how she tastes.

“We’re burning moonlight,” he says. He looks over the array of tools sitting in the trunk, and takes out a flashlight, shoving it into his pocket. With how unrelenting the pitch, night-time darkness was currently, Tanner figured he might need it. Then, he grabs his shovel and closes the car’s trunk. 

After a debating moment, Luna follows him. She holds her bag in one hand, with as few fingers as possible, grimacing every time the plastic mass hits her knee as she walks. She must be wondering: who’s in here, and what pieces?

“We were paid very handsomely for a concealed, but proper burial, you know,” Tanner informs her, “Some clients are overly particular about where they want a corpse left.”

If Luna has anything to say, she doesn’t tell him. He’ll bridge the gap, then.

“I suppose it must be out of some sick, needless sentimentality,” he theorises, “Maybe born of guilt? Or familial ties. Or both. More often than not, those who request to know the locations of the bodies are families of the job.”

“ The job ,” Luna echoes quietly. There’s a hitch in her breath. A little more high-pitched than usual.

“I’ve even visited sites and discovered makeshift grave markers,” Tanner continues. “It’s not an intelligent move on the client’s part.”

They walk further through the plot. Distantly, there’s a faraway view of the city, lording above, lit windows casting star-imitating beams of light. It peeks out from the dotted walls of trees that close in from every angle. They pass trash, wrecks, and debris on their way as they progress further, side-by-side as they move.  They end up deep into the lot. In a way that might be considered too anticlimactic, Tanner embeds his shovel into the moist Earth and just digs. He could leave the bags and probably get away undiscovered, but that’s too sloppy for his personal liking, and the client had requested a burial with an address and photographic evidence.

He can feel Luna go still. She’s behind him, simply watching his process. 

His back is turned to her. She’s out of his eyesight. It would be very easy for her to make an escape, or attempt it, at least.

Tanner knows this. He revels in it.

Maybe he’s a tad self-destructive, and a game of cat-and-mouse could be too impulsive for tonight’s agenda, but Tanner doesn’t care. 

He’s grown a little bored, you could say.

Earlier, he said he wasn’t in the mood for a game, but now…well, no matter how late it was, the night was still young. No pests were around to intrude. It’s especially reassuring to know that it’s a game he’s guaranteed to win. 

So Tanner keeps digging. Dirt kicks into the air, forms a crater, and gives way acceptably. He kicks two bags inside. Packs it over with soil. Stands there for a moment. 

There’s the patter of rushing footsteps, clamouring over the land, cutting through the air like a scalpel pushes a straight divide between skin. Luna was already gone. Fleeting through greenery. Trying to fade into nothing but smoke, impossible to snag between his fingers. But she underestimates him. They underestimate each other.

And again - Tanner’s a gentleman. 

So in the name of fairness, he counts to thirty seconds. What kind of man would he be if he didn’t give Luna a head start?

He flips his flashlight on. The beam it emits is so bright, so blinding, it’s practically a beacon. 

Maybe this was all unnecessary. Maybe he should be focusing on the task at hand, the job he was paid to complete. Most would view this as a triviality, a distraction.

But a game was afoot, and Tanner loved to win.

Chapter Text

The forest is thick, alive, and unbearably quiet.

In short - Luna’s screwed. 

Every noise is exaggerated, echoing through the lengthy swathes of textureless dark. Fallen twigs that would otherwise be nearly soundless break underfoot like resounding church bells - so loud the darkness crumples in on itself. So loud she flinches and swerves around, convinced he’s there.

But she doesn’t see him.

Not yet.

She has no phone. No torch. Nothing to guide her through the endless land she traipses through, directionless and blind. Luna stretches her hands out to find something to grip to for balance, but only reaches air, leaving her off-centre. She’s as uncoordinated as a baby deer, moving as if her legs are made of rubber. She’d kill for anything to help her see, even a lighter - because Luna’s fast. She’s not as quick as the trained police officers she’s spent her life surrounded by, but despite a sedentary job, she runs when she can, and she doesn't run slow. 

It’s intense paranoia that keeps her in shape. Some days, before hitting the desktop, Luna runs laps of her neighbourhood and wonders how much faster an intruder could be. Wonders how much faster the Blue Blood Killer was when he chased down her cousin. Imagines and even feels the presence of something, someone behind her and picks up the pace. 

She’d be so much faster right now, when she actually needs it for once in her life, but the terrain is horribly rocky and she can’t see a thing ahead of her. There’s nothing but whatever floats into her vision, and the all-encompassing dark that folds inwards. 

Luna has the unnerving, anxious feeling that she’s only getting further from civilisation, rather than closer to it. She was surrounded only by the repetitive backdrop of trees, shooting upwards into the sky. They were far enough out of the city that she could actually see stars - disorienting acetic specks that shook unsteadily above her. 

She runs and knows she’s making noise. She runs and there’s no other choice.

Breathing is painful. She sucks in gelid air and her lungs turn to ice. There’s a stitch in her side that threatens to stop her, but adrenaline keeps her going. Luna can’t afford to stop. More than once, she runs into a tree. More than once, she trips. But she clambers back to her feet and keeps going.

She can feel him. Around. Nearby. Present. 

It was dangerous to be roaming a forest at night. It was worse to be roaming a forest at night when you’re being followed. And there’s no point denying it - he’s close. Luna doesn’t have to look back to know Tanner’s right on her trail. She doesn’t know how long she can keep this up for, but she’ll drag it out as long as she physically can. It's a mix of spite and determination that keeps her moving.

After a few minutes, she starts to think she might have actually managed to lose him, to shake him off of her. The only sound is her crashing footsteps, which is perhaps making more noise than it’s worth. Her chest is heaving, and it’s getting difficult to continue. After a minute of consideration, Luna allows her pace to slow down. Everything burns, and it’s a relief to stop the ceaseless rushing. She stumbles around until she finds a pine tree and slumps against it, tilting her head back. 

She runs her hand over her face and groans into her palm. The adrenaline starts to ebb a little, and her body slackens with tiredness. She focuses on her heart - still racing a mile a minute - and waits until it slows. 

It’s a break. A reprieve. A chance to regather herself and think.

She looks along the land before her and discovers…nothing. The darkness eradicates anything distinct. Her only consolation is the fact that it’s only an hour or so until sunrise, but she’s disheartened by the idea of still being around by then…

There was nothing to do but keep pushing forward, one foot in front of the other. Eventually, she’d find a road, and she’d follow that until a car passed. And then…hitchhike? 

 But then where would she go?

If she goes to the police, Tanner would make his threat apparent - actually, maybe not? Luna’s tempted to consider that a bluff, on his part. How would he do so without revealing himself?

But there was still a lot he could do. Tanner made it clear in tonight’s conversations that he intends to track her down upon her escape…how long could she make it on her own? And if she did go to the cops, what could they really do?

She could lead them back to his apartment. Tell them everything she knows. Go into witness protection or something. Anything until he’s locked up and away from her…

But maybe Luna was underestimating him. He had strings to pull, cards to play. If the Blue Blood Killer had escaped so easily, then how simple would it be for Tanner to evade capture? He had the necessary skills and resources. Thinking back to their conversation in the basement where he'd given her the BBK files, he'd boasted of all his high-profile connections.

She’ll figure it out later. She’d have to push planning ahead on the backburner - survival came first, one foot in front of the other. 

With nothing else to do, Luna starts to walk. Unfortunately, it’s freezing tonight. Her jacket doesn’t do enough to pervade her shivering  - and it is hers, because she’d discovered an alarming amount of her own clothes in Tanner’s closet. 

She’s regaining her energy, starting to calm down, when she sees it. 

A circular flashlight beam, brightening an entire patch of trees in front of her, cut by the shape of her own shadow.

“Found you!”

And everything shifts. 

Luna clamours forward carelessly, recklessly. Her feet shuffle uselessly as she kicks into motion, and suddenly, she’s scampering over foliage, pushing through the dense vegetation faster than she can think. There’s simply the primitive instinct to live and the horrific, acute awareness that she’s being followed. 

Her footsteps are no longer the only sound. 

Tanner doesn’t just run - he stampedes. She can hear, feel him closing in on her, like a tsunami rolling down a hill. His voice taunts her as he gives chase, and there’s nothing to do but keep running, wondering who will give up first. Not her. She won’t let it be her. He doesn't know who he's dealing with.

Everywhere she goes, a flashlight beam follows, landing squarely on her back. He’s a few metres behind and she doesn’t dare to look behind to confirm it. 

She pushes through the disorientation that scrambles her mind and just focuses on making distance, increasing speed. Her darkened vision clashes with images of her cousin Sarah - Sarah with ice cream smeared on her face when they were kids, Sarah at her graduation, Sarah unmoving and bruised on the autopsy table. 

Luna can’t wait to see her again, but- 

Not yet.

She won’t die today. Not in his hands. Not beneath the cruelty of that motherfucker . 

Luna didn’t know it then, but as it turns out, she’s just as competitive as he is. 

The only difference is she’s pretty sure her survival is dependent on winning. 

A looming cast of his flashlight scorches her eyes, and he yells out her name. She swerves, rushing behind a tree so fast her arm grazes against the bark and scrapes with a sting. She hardly notices. Suddenly, she’s going downhill, and it’s getting harder and harder to keep herself from falling. The ground is uneven, and a strike of light from Tanner’s torch reveals a malicious, silver glint of what she realizes is a bear trap, which makes her situation go from dangerous to deadly. The Earth under her was now twice as threatening, and she could only see what Tanner illuminated. 

And it was a bad thing to see where Tanner’s flashlight went because that meant he could see her. 

Her feet scramble hazardously as she skids to a stop, narrowly avoiding the horrific fate glinting from the spiked teeth of the bear trap. 

And then she feels spindly, dexterous fingers entangle with her tumbling waves of hair, made a mess by the chaos. 

“Found you!”

A genuinely elated heap of laughter echoes from behind her, shooting into her ears and sending a flinch up her body. It’s sadistic. It’s cruel. 

As his hand hooks deep into her hair, digging into her scalp, Luna shoves forward. She slams her body away from him with all the force she can summon, probably leaving errant strands caught between his fingers. His knuckles graze over the back of her neck, trying to clutch the hem of her shirt and pull her right back to him, but she’s quicker. 

She darts between trees and makes ample distance until she can’t feel his breath on the back of her throat anymore, but then the cursed, blinding ray of light lands on her location, shaky as he runs. She runs too. 

Tanner lets out an exultant cackle, clearly aimed at her expense. She grits her teeth. If she had the strength or was armed, maybe she’d turn around right there and try to fight. But logically, while he had brute force, Luna had agility. She could outrun him, she’s certain. She just has to lose him before her energy depletes. More importantly, she has to not land directly on a beartrap, which is now a very pressing, apparent threat, as if tonight wasn’t already bad enough.

And if there were bear traps, didn’t that mean bears-

Luna pushes that thought out of her mind. The likelihood of her running into a stray grizzly while being chased by a serial killer would have to mean she genuinely had the worst luck in the world. 

…But they were so, so far out from the city. At first, she figured they couldn’t be going too far away, but Tanner drove fast. She didn’t know enough about vehicles to pinpoint what kind of car he had, but it looked expensive, though with the way he drove it (treating speed limits like gentle suggestions), he acted like it was a racecar on a track. Before she could even register how long it had been, skyscrapers had been replaced with pines. She wouldn’t be surprised if she was only plunging farther and farther from the nearest settlement. Would she have to start treating this like a survival situation?

She shakes her head. Her main priority was getting away from Tanner. Right now, he was the most threatening thing in her vicinity - grizzlies and mountain lions were practically flies in comparison to him. In fact, she’d welcome being mauled to death by a bear, if it meant the absolute fucker chasing her down didn’t get the satisfaction of killing her. 

Running downhill has the advantage of letting her build speed. Her lungs are starting to wail with the effort, squeezing with every breath, with a nasty stitch burning her side, but at least she's faster. And the pain doesn’t matter. She won’t stop. Not until he’s gone.

Tanner probably knew the lay of the land better than she did - he seemed and spoke as if he were familiar with the place - but she wondered how he’d fare alone in the wilderness. A guy who lives in a penthouse probably doesn’t do much camping - surely, somebody who has gel in his hair every day and always wears a crisp lab coat wouldn’t be cut out for survival training at all. Tanner was many things, but he didn’t come across as outdoorsy. 

The problem was that it was true of both of them. Luna’s bachelor’s degree in criminal justice didn’t exactly prepare her for hunting. Her brief stint as a Girl Scout did, she supposes, but that had been when she’d been very young, and she doesn’t remember a thing, aside from afternoons sobbing as her instructor peppered her in bandaids and scowls.

“Luna!” Tanner calls out, his voice lined with a vindictive, taunting nature. She’s sure there’s a smirk on his face, drawn on his lips, giving way to his pristine teeth. She wants to punch it off his perfect fucking face, wants to smear his pride off of his broad and towering frame-

And then the worst possible thing happens. 

In the still nighttime dark, she goes from not being able to find space to grip her fingers onto for steadiness, to not being able to locate the ground underneath her shoes.

A rock wedges beneath her foot, and suddenly she’s a flailing mess of limbs, knocked out of breath, barreling downwards-

That old, recurring, pesky headache seeps right back in as she lands hard into the soil, skidding forward like a crashing car, friction eroding her like the sea on cliffs. She feels her entire body get scraped and gritted as she’s thrown to the ground. There’s a damning, sharp crack as her shoulder makes contact with a rock that simultaneously digs into her jaw. There’s an immediate burst of agony from both affected areas.

A pained grumble starts to leave her lips before she remembers her predicament and stifles it. She tries to clasp her hand over her mouth, but when she moves her arm, it burns, and she drops it right back down, nothing but dead weight. She grits her teeth and hisses lowly at the scalding burst of pain.

For a moment, she just lies there and accepts the fact that this is how she dies. Sprawled on the ground, dirt smeared on her face and all the way up her jeans and jacket, probably trying to crawl away from Tanner when he inevitably found her. 

She sees traces of the torch’s light shooting through the leaves, and shortly after, hears his footsteps coming to a halt. 

“Luna,” he calls out, becking for her like she's an escaped dog. His voice resounds through the forest. There’s no response but the rustling of nature and a distant hoot of an owl. “Where have you gone?” 

Luna sucks in a tight breath. She has to move, but her entire body is aching with the pained results of her fall. She twists her body around, her knees dragging through the dirt. Her limbs scream, particularly her banged-up shoulder, but she can’t stop now. She embeds her fingers into the dirt and claws, pushing forward until she reaches a tree. With all the strength she can spare, she pries her way and hauls herself up until she’s sitting behind it, inhaling air as if she’s never breathed before.

She was hidden. Not well - but hidden. 

It takes everything she can muster to make her legs function, positioning herself into a shaky stand. Her aching feet threaten to buckle under her weight. Agility was a concept of the past, now. 

Luna realises she probably has better chances of hiding, hoping desperately that he’ll move past her, wandering off elsewhere to search. Trying to keep moving right now would make too much noise, drawing him closer.

So Luna stays put. She sighs, shifts her weight, and leans back against the tree.

Her ears prick with the nearing sound of footsteps. Like UFOs in alien movies, a fatal cast of flashlight beam cuts through the forest, and she catches slivers of it, traipsing around the tree she’s against. Tanner hasn’t seen her yet, but if he rounds the corner…

“Luna,” Tanner calls out, “Come out, come out…”

His footsteps turn slow. Threatening. Like a predatory animal slowly stalking its prey. She can feel every one of his footsteps, weighed and intentional, getting closer and closer- 

She sucks her last breath in and doesn’t dare to move an inch or make a sound. To do so would risk death. She just has to wait it out…

“I did tell you I was excited to play, didn’t I?” His voice is playful, but low and laced with promises she doesn’t want to know the intentions of. And worst of all - it was close by. As if he were right next to her. 

Luna’s heart is the only part of her that moves. It’s pulsing so fast it might as well leap out of the skin of her chest. 

“Well, you make for a very entertaining person to play with,” he informs her, and it makes her feel sick. Her innards twist with a mixture of nervousness and disgust. 

His words from their first encounter - face-to-face encounter - repeat in her head. ‘ I can tell you’re worried about being violated and beaten…perhaps eaten alive?’

Of all the times they’ve met, that encounter was by far the worst. She can still remember the awful feeling that had encompassed her body as his eyes lingered on her own, as his words cut deep, but also, at times, spoke praisingly. She’d been caught in an extremely confusing mix of surprise, fear, and ever-so-slightly, relief. Because for the first time, she’d been recognised for her work. For the first time, she’d been rewarded. 

But those phrases of so-called ‘ kindness’ had been mixed with vague threats and innuendoes that made her skin crawl. 

Violated. 

Beaten. 

Eaten alive.

Waking up in his bed. Discovering her own clothes, neatly organised and folded in his drawers as if a space had been specifically cleared out for her. And what he’d said - companion. Accomplice. Assistance. He’d spoken so assuredly, so factually, as if everything had been thoroughly planned. 

When she took the file he gave her about the Blue Blood Killer, she’d understood it would be costly. And oh, how she wanted to say no. Her pride and her morals had screamed at her to decline his offer, back in that basement, to spit at him and all the vile things he stood for. Because despite his praise, despite the respect he seemed to hold for her, all of that effort in university, at the DA’s, and managing the programme couldn’t be for nothing. She couldn’t let some random man swoop in and do the work for her, especially one who was a criminal, the worst of criminals, the type who slaughtered innocent people and still slept at night. 

And then - 

And then- 

‘...But I suppose you’re lucky I like you so much.’

The way he’d said it - the way he’d looked at her as he said it - it made her skin crawl. 

And it had ended ominously with his suave voice, far too close for comfort, whispering: ‘Until next time, Luna.’

And then she’d woken up in her bed, tucked in, a file waiting untouched on her bedside. 

And every moment since then, she’d spent waiting. Waiting for his return. Waiting for the illusion to shatter. Waiting for him to come by and finish the things they had left.

The file had been the heaviest weight she’d ever held. The most expensive information she’d ever gleaned. The costs had imprinted not just on her consciousness ( guilt had consumed every waking moment since he slid the file into her hands), but physically. Tanner, as promised, had come to collect his dues. She knew he wouldn’t really leave her alone, not for too long. When she’d felt his presence behind her, back in her home, she knew what was happening.

She’d expected the worst. Maybe she’d be trafficked, like the countless, poor women she’d read about in the infinite cases she dealt with in the crime watch programme. Or perhaps she’d be torn open from her chest, her body dismantled - she’d wondered if the price of the file would be an arm and a leg, literally. Tanner kept such a clinical, medical demeanour that she’d wondered if he worked in organ-harvesting on the dark web. Maybe she’d be put to work as a drug mule, or something else shady and highly illegal. He could have come to rob her house. Or maybe he’d simply wanted to kill her.

What Luna didn’t expect was to be abducted and put to work as his personal assistant . And she was starting to realise what that would probably entail. Cleaning up blood. Hiding bodies. Disposing of evidence. 

In short, helping him kill people. 

She keeps on thinking about those bags. One of which she’d held. Somebody was inside of it. Somebody who had lived once. Somebody who had been murdered under Tanner’s hands. Somebody she was helping him bury, in a random trash dump in the middle of nowhere, where he’d never be found.

She wanted to retch. 

In her career, she’d been exposed to a lot of dead people. She’d explored horrific homicide cases, seen pictures of bodies, organised samples of blood and flecks of gore for CSI inspection. But never once had she carried a corpse like a grocery bag. A living, breathing person was still and chopped up in her arms. Now, they were left to rot amid stacks of trash and litter. They deserved justice. 

She can’t live like that. She can’t stomach a daily routine of watching Tanner kill people and helping him hide the crime. 

Especially considering a part of her, a part of her she doesn’t want to acknowledge, knows she’d be good at it. 

Luna’s career at the District Attorney’s has given her the necessary knowledge to - and it was a sickening thought - get away with murder. She knows the places police will look, she knows how to wipe all conversations, pictures, and other incriminating details off of a device, she knows how to exploit the blind spots of cameras, she knows how to scrub away any trace of evidence. She knows how a killer functions. Maybe she even knows how to be one. 

But Luna couldn’t live with herself. The guilt of having victims would follow her wherever she went. She’d be crushed beneath the weight of their bodies. She’d drown in the blood on her hands. 

Murderers were among the worst of people. She had no guilt in locking them up, putting them behind bars where they belonged, away from the rest of society. And Tanner…Tanner, in her opinion, was the lowest of the low. It was clear that there was no line he wouldn’t cross if it served his own benefits. 

And she didn’t trust that that was all Tanner had planned for her. Her mind repeated a horrific mantra of violated, beaten, eaten alive. 

He could kill her at any moment. And where would he leave her body? Beside the corpse they’d just buried? Or was he really a cannibal, like his disturbing, sly phrases hinted at? Would she be stuffed into a freezer somewhere, her flesh frozen and ready to consume? Or maybe she’d end up in that concrete basement he seemed to have somewhere, the one he’d dragged her to on their first meeting.

If Luna died tonight, within the shadowy depths of middle-of-nowhere woodland, then she’d die with her head held up. She’d die, but she’d put up a fight. She’d leave her mark. She’d kick and scratch and claw if she had to. Tanner would have to bury her dead body with his face torn and bleeding, the last remnant of her existence embedded into his skin. And maybe she couldn’t do much damage, given that she didn’t even have a knife to defend herself with, but she’d spent her last moments inflicting as much pain as possible. Because fuck him. Fuck him and fuck everything about him. 

And yes, he’d get away with it, and yes, it was a horrific way to go. Luna absolutely didn’t like it, but she could deal with it, as long as she died knowing she didn’t make it easy for him. She’d rip out some of his meticulously combed hair. Leave brutish marks along his flawless skin. Leave a purplish ring around one of his burnished eyes. She’d die, but she’d spit in his face as the life drained out of her. 

In the mess of her thoughts, she realizes it’s been a while since she’s heard one of his taunts. After a tense moment, waiting for something bad, she realizes there’s nothing but silence. 

Her shoulders drop. She releases a relieved breath. There’s no light, no footsteps. She takes a slight step forward, intending to hobble as far as she can go until she hopefully finds a road.

And then, because apparently the world hates her, she has to stop in her tracks. 

Slowly, dragging a bouncing circular beam with it, Tanner’s flashlight rolls forward from seemingly nowhere. It travels a little down the terrain, tilts, then stops, leaving a massive swell of round light across a long patch of forest. 

Luna’s breath pauses in her throat. She stares at it. 

She hears the footsteps. Too quiet. A man so tall and broad can’t possibly be that soundless, but he seems to be an expert when it comes to stealth. 

Luna doesn’t have to turn her head to know that he’s right there. 

And then - thud. 

She’s slammed back against the tree, and an immediate course of agony ruptures through her bad shoulder and injured body. She screams and he doesn’t bother to stop her.

The first thing she sees is his smirk. She wants to wipe it off his face. 

Tanner boxes her right in against the tree, his body weight shoved over her form and stopping her from making a break for it. She tries, anyway, shoving against his arms. She’s violent, thrashing around like an animal in a trap. And she nearly makes it, too. She’s just about to crash away from his muscled arms when he grabs her by the shoulder - the wounded one, because again, the world hates her - and slams her right back into place with zero mercy. It’s torture. She screams again, but he’s the only one who’s around to hear it. 

“Well, this was fun,” Tanner says, and all of a sudden, his face is looming too close to her own. “We should play more often, don’t you think?”

“Fuck you!” Luna hollers. Despite the agony in her shoulder, she slams her arms forward, her body clashing against his, her teeth gnashing, but there’s no use. He pins her down, but she keeps trying anyway. 

“You’re a sore loser,” he tells her. He leans close. She instinctually leans away, but there’s nowhere to go. “I figured as much. Nobody as righteous as yourself has all that fire and isn’t feisty. I expected you to put up a fight - and trust me, Luna, I am so glad you did.”

“Get off me!” She screams, “Get off!”

He ignores her. It only makes her angrier. 

“And you make for such good prey,” Tanner says. His tone is slightly demeaning, but more so…praising. Adoring. But in a way that made her pride burn , made her want to overpower him, throw him aside, and run like hell. “So agile. So swift. So clever.”

“You’re a prick,” she snarls, “You know that? You are so smug, and for what? Like killing innocent people gives you the right to be so shit-eating?”

“Shh,” Tanner whispers. She wants him dead. “It was fun, I’ll admit, but it’s getting late, don’t you think?”

She can feel every inch of his body pressed closely against her own. Every stretch of his limbs, every twitch of his lengthy - too lengthy - fingers as they restrained her shoulders. It’s constricting and horrifying, but also, for some reason, exciting . She wants to tear him off of her, but also, some quiet part of her doesn’t. It’s that human instinct that there’s somebody attractive on top of me, and when in Rome-

And that’s ridiculous, and she wants to dispel that idea, but something about the things he’d been whispering to her came across as not just demeaning, but possibly... flirtatious. It didn’t help that his gaze kept trailing up her body, that he was pushing himself closer, lording above her.

One of his hands, which had been pressed harshly on her shoulder, lowers gradually until it reaches her chest. It just sits there. Present. Not moving too much. But his fingers were splayed as far as they’d reach, and with every movement, her chest grazed against his touch. 

All fell silent. Luna met Tanner’s eyes. 

It seems the night’s events have made them both a mess, not just her. She thought she was bad, with her scraped body and dirtied clothes, but Tanner’s equally ruffled. His clothes are in a poor state as well. His body is hot and rolling with sweat. His hair, usually pristine, is now made shaggy. She finds she likes it better that way. But that’s silly, because why would she pay so much attention to how he looks?

His body was too close to hers, skin flush with skin. They were both grasping for breath, sweating and breathless from the chase. It was a…compromising situation, to say the least, the implications of which she’d only just realised due to his proximity. 

And then, because her life isn’t already fucked up enough, Tanner decides to lean closer. 

Her racing thoughts stop short, fuzzing out like a broken fuse, when his lips meet hers. 

What. 

Genuinely what.

They stay like that for a second. His lips on hers. Her mind failed to make sense of this, because it had been months since she’s even bothered with dating, and she was expecting to be stabbed right now, not kissed. 

Violated, beaten, eaten alive.

They break contact, and after a debating moment, she tilts her face upwards and presses their lips back into place. 

And then suddenly it’s a mess of hands and mouths and his tongue and whatever it is the fuck they’re doing that her brain is refusing to register, because really? Tanner? Of all people, Tanner?

And then Luna’s hands are in Tanner’s hair, because yeah, she does like it when it’s messy like this, and no, she won’t admit it. She rakes her fingers through his chestnut waves and scratches, digging her nails deep into his scalp because she wants it to hurt. And his hands are on her - and she should consider this violating, but she’s kissing him back, so where the hell does that leave them? - and he’s not letting go. Her entire body is aching and wailing in protest, but also burning, burning in the waxing, melting way, like her skin is on fire and must brush against his in order to keep the flame alight. 

His hand is on his chest, pressing into the fabric of her shirt, but suddenly, it’s gone under her shirt’s hem and is touching skin. His fingers are like molten fireplace stokers as they traverse her body, her stomach. And then they’re on her bra, digging past it and kneading fat and flesh -

And then, because she has a tiny trace of sanity left, her mind suddenly conjures up the thought of: catch him off guard!

So Luna takes the chance. 

She shoves his body off of her own, and it’s easy because he didn’t see it coming. She evaporates the tense moment they were having, the moment she knows she’ll never dignify again. And then she’s running as fast as she can, her feet scrambling for purchase-

But she’s exhausted, and he recovers quickly. One of his gigantic fingers compacts with her shoulder. She wails and thrashes, her legs flailing uselessly as she tries to run, but there’s no point. 

Tanner slams her down into the ground, her body heaving as she lands. And he lands too - conveniently sprawled right on top of her, which makes the pleasant burning come back again, fuzzy and making her light-headed.

He’s straddling her, and she can barely breathe under him, but no worries, because it doesn’t last long. That insufferable prick of a syringe sticks in her throat again. An old sting pulses, aching. She’ll get another hematoma.

Her mind spinning, she finds it within her to laugh. A genuine bellow of laughter rings out her throat as her head starts to sway. 

“I win,” Luna tells him through a mouthful of dirt. “I fucking win!”

Tanner spins her around to look at him. He’s clearly pleased with himself, but quirks an eyebrow, entertaining her drugged declaration. “Are you sure about that?” 

“I win,” she repeats, “I beat you, Tanner.” 

“And why’s that?” He challenges. “The way I see it, I’m the one pinning you down.”

She smirks. Her teeth are grinding painfully into her bottom lip, but she smirks anyway. It feels exhilarating. She understands why Tanner’s always doing it. 

“Because you’re the one who's going to have to carry me all the way back to the car,” she informs him, then adds, “Uphill.”

He’s so puzzled for a moment that he blinks, his smirk fading as he processes. “You’re right.”

Small victories, she tells herself. 

Her vision goes black.

Small victories, all around.

Chapter Text

His phone reads 10:23 AM, meaning Tanner managed to get nearly four hours of sleep. Not bad, by his standards. He hadn’t gotten home until six in the morning, and after dragging Luna to bed, he’d basically collapsed on the spot from exhaustion. He’d been out cold beside Luna as soon as he’d hit the sheets.

Luna had been right - even though he won based on the usual parameters of the game, she’d gotten him back in the end. She wasn’t that heavy, but she was still an adult woman, and the forest had been steep. The tiredness from the hunt’s aftermath and the night’s activities had left him unable to complete his to-do list, so Luna’s home was currently untouched. It was still too early for anybody to drop by and investigate, so Tanner figured he still had time to plant evidence crediting the abduction to the Blue Blood Killer. 

Rubbing his eyes, he glances over to his side. Aside from shifting in her sleep a bit, Luna’s sprawled in exactly the same position he left her last night - jeans and shoes pulled off lazily, a now-melted cold compress on her shoulder. There are some twigs and leaves in her hair, remnants of last night. He probably should have woken her up so that she could wash the forest’s dirt off her body, but it had been late, and he’d barely had the energy to shower himself.

Light from the windows scalds his retinas, and Tanner blinks, rolling his sore limbs and acclimating to being awake. The rest was helpful, of course, but insufficient. He’ll have to compensate by making up for it tonight.

Tanner pushes out of bed before he can let the tempting warmth of the duvet lure him back to sleep. He’s still groggy with exhaustion, but there’s an overly complex coffee machine waiting patiently on the kitchen counter. He starts making himself a drink, and is debating whether or not to make Luna one too, but he’s not sure if she’ll be awake while it’s still hot. 

He’s sipping black coffee, so hot it practically scalds his tongue, but caffeine is one of his few blessings in life, so he’ll treasure it. As billows of bitter steam assault his face, he plans out the day. He’ll have to visit Luna’s house in the suburbs and clean up the mess there - he’s been putting it off for a day too long. He probably ought to start up a new case while he’s at it, too. Last time he checked his inbox, there are a few expectant clients asking for his services. 

And then there’s the Adam situation. Tanner was getting antsy about that - he suspected that he only had so long before Adam came to collect his dues. He’s been told the saying ‘ leave the devil to his demons’, but Adam will only be distracted with organising and maintaining his infamous game for so long before he’ll come knocking. 

He’d worry about that later. One thing at a time. 

There’s a sudden creaking sound that means his bedroom door is being pushed open. Then a hesitant pause. Then Luna steps out, visibly a mess (yet regardless, she shines just as bright as she always does), taking cautious steps onto the open floor. 

“Morning!” He says, then motions to the coffee machine, “Want some?”

She stared at him pensively, gnawing on her bottom lip, before stepping closer. She strides into the kitchen, past him, and wordlessly starts making herself a drink. 

Tanner shrugs. He opens his fridge (very, very empty considering he’s hardly present in his own home) and grabs a container of milk for her. He sets it aside the machine and leans against the countertop, nursing his beverage. 

“Hungry?” He asks her. He could eat, but his refrigerator pretty much exclusively consists of a few boxes of Chinese takeaway leftovers that are probably too old to eat. 

Luna doesn’t deign to answer him, instead focusing on pouring coffee into a mug. Still giving him the silent treatment, then. 

“We could go out for breakfast,” Tanner muses, “There are some decent cafes in the area.”

Luna reaches out to grab the milk carton, but then flinches, letting out a low seethe. Her hand immediately flies to her shoulder, massaging the inflamed flesh tenderly. Right. He’d noticed last night that she injured it. 

He returns to the fridge and grabs a fresh ice pack out of the freezer, handing it to her. Luna stares at it, her gaze dubious and considering, before slowly grabbing it and pressing it to her injury. Tanner grins. His peace offering was accepted. 

She doesn’t trust him, that’s clear. She has no reason to. In fact, she’s smart to be wary of him, but she’ll get used to him soon enough. He’s sure of it. 

“...Thank you,” Luna says, clutching her abused shoulder. 

Tanner only smiles. Most people don’t keep their manners while conversing with their captors. She’s still polite. Very, very polite. 

“Next time we play a game, I’m sure you’ll leave some marks of your own, Luna,” he says cheerily. 

“‘Play a game?’” She repeats. She spins around on her heel, staring at him. “Everything that happened last night - that’s a game to you?” 

Games . There were all sorts of them in Tanner’s world. He can still remember taking the BBK files from Adam’s offering hand, seeing the man smile as Tanner was welcomed into the depths of his elaborate, infamous system.

Luna didn’t need to know about all of that , though.

“It’s not Adam’s usual style, but it’s an activity particular to you and me, isn’t it?” Tanner says, unfazed. “We should play again, sometime.”

Luna narrows her gaze. “Adam. You’ve mentioned this guy before. Who is he?”

It was natural for her to be curious - curiosity was one of the many traits that fueled her career at the District Attorney’s, though not as much as her firm morality and her passion for justice. But right now, telling her about Adam felt like a bad idea. She’ll dig deep, too deep, and suddenly, she’ll be just as much of a player in the game as Tanner is. She didn’t need to know about Adam, not yet.

(Though it had been made clear to Tanner that Adam certainly knew about Luna, and it was not reassuring.)

“Not somebody you want to know about,” he dismisses. 

“Who is he?” Luna repeats, as if she’s in any position to make demands. 

…The problem is, she kind of is in a position to make demands, the way she pulls at his heartstrings. He wants to tell her what she wants to hear, and with time, Tanner worries that Luna will be able to pry precious information out of him. And he shouldn’t let her, but Tanner’s too generous. 

He supposes it’s fair of her to expect such standards, considering Tanner would, quite literally, give her the world if she asked for it. It’d be covered in blood and neatly controlled beneath his fingers, but still, she could have it if she wanted. 

Tanner gets the feeling he’s going to spoil her more than is advisable. 

He decides to take it in stride. It was a sign that chivalry wasn’t dead. Not as long as Tanner was around to orbit Luna. 

“Somebody higher up than me,” Tanner tells her ambiguously. As distasteful as it is to admit it, it’s technically true. Nobody toppled Adam. Everybody, even Tanner, answered to Adam’s beck and call, and they didn’t dare hesitate. 

“You said you made yourself indebted to him,” says Luna.

“We can talk about Adam later,” says Tanner, and makes sure his voice conveys a sense of finality. “But for now…We have another errand to get done.” 

Luna stares him down for a moment, an intense storm brewing behind her gaze, then relents. “Fine. Can I shower first?”

“Of course,” says Tanner, then jokingly adds, “You’re not a captive.”

If looks could kill, he’d be a dead man. 

-

Letting Luna keep her cellphone might be too lenient, so when he spots it on her nightstand, he subtly slips it into her pocket. He wasn’t too restrictive, but there were some risks that weren’t worth the hassle. Luna, none the wiser, combs through her drawers as she selects a few stacks of clothes to bring back with her. 

Tanner leaves her to her own devices and heads into her lounge, beelining to her desk. What’s left of the Blue Blood Killer files lies askew on her desk - he shuffles through the papers, removing anything that might have any chance of being tied to himself, and leaves the most incriminating documents - the ones that identify the BBK and record evidence. He scatters them about the house in obvious places, then gets to work falsifying a break-in.

He’s jamming one of her window locks, being purposefully sloppy. When Tanner sneaks into Luna’s house, he has the decency to be neat about it, but the BBK wouldn’t. He leaves her window in a bad state - a few pins shoved in the lock, scratches up the length of the pane’s framing. Then he moves on to the door, kicking it in at the bottom somewhat. The picture he paints is subtle, but not to the trained eye of the investigations team - Luna put up a fight as she was kidnapped, and her abductor was too clumsy to keep the crime scene seamless. 

Once he’s pleased with the refined details, he heads to her PC. Immediately, her suspicious persons programme pops up. 

Out of morbid curiosity, he opens up the first file.

It had been submitted by a concerned woman, who believed her husband was going to hire a hitman to take out his wealthy, CEO brother. The brother hadn’t been seen since. The case was a day old. 

Familiar. Very familiar indeed. 

He drags it to the shredder and shuts down the site.

He can hear Luna rounding the hallway, watching from the corner as he scrubs her computer’s surveillance app. It would be particularly comforting to somehow forge a video of the fake kidnapping for the police to find, but that’s beyond his capabilities right now, and maybe it was better not to overdo it. Aside from removing the camera footage of Tanner in Luna’s house, there really hadn’t been much need for all this. The Blue Blood Killer would be the first suspect, no matter what - maybe Tanner’s slightly a perfectionist. 

“Are you ready to leave?” He asks. 

“Sure,” Luna answers. She narrows her eyes, noting his nearness to her PC, but doesn’t ask questions. Her attention diverts to the window he had lockpicked, and she walks up to it, frowning as she inspects the damage. She turns around, leaning against it, and stares at him. “What’s this about?” 

“I had to make it convincing,” Tanner says. He walks up to her - seemingly too close for her liking, because she visibly stiffens at the proximity.

“Make what convincing?” Luna questions. He inches even closer to her, noticing as she slowly raises her gaze to make eye contact with him, having to crane her neck to do so.

“Well, not to boast, but I don’t think the Blue Blood Killer’s lockpicking abilities are as refined as my own,” Tanner answers. “I had to take measures to make it appear as if the Blue Blood Killer had come knocking on your door, rather than me. I wouldn’t want anything to interrupt our activities together.”

“Activities together,” Luna repeats. She’s pretty much boxed against the windowsill. He’s cornered her, as if she’s a prey animal - but she wasn’t acting like some caught rabbit. Her accusatory stare was unyielding, unforgiving. She wouldn’t back down. “You mean your habit of stalking the building’s perimeter and kidnapping me?”

“Call it what you want,” Tanner allows. He’s so close that it’s claustrophobic. He can nearly feel her lungs expanding beneath her skin with breaths that were becoming shallow with thinly veiled panic. “There isn’t much point in denying what I did.” 

“You repulse me,” Luna tells him outright. To a normal person, such words might sting. 

He places a hand against the wall, boxing her in. It reminds him of last night, their encounter against the tree. “I’m aware.”

“What you do - and how proud you are of it - it’s vile,” she informs him succinctly. 

Tanner’s lips graze her forehead as he leans closer. “Oh, it certainly is. You’re not rude to point that out, you’re factual.” 

“But I took the files,” Luna continues quietly. “So now I’m complicit.” 

Complicit. A good word to use in reference to the situation he’s dragged her into. It ran off her lips like clinical jargon, like she’d read it from a case file. 

He asks a question he already knows the answer to. “Are you better off for it?”

“No.” She puts a hand on his chest, right at his heart, trying to push him away. He doesn’t back down.

“Sure, you’re a criminal now,” Tanner begins, “But it seems preferable to what you were doing before.”

Luna scoffs in disagreement. “Killing people is preferable to getting them justice?” 

“It pays better,” he says, “It gets more appreciation.”

“It gets appreciation from the most sick, twisted individuals in the city,” Luna sneers, “It’s disgusting. It’s depraved. And I don’t care about the money. Killing people for cash - that’s the lowest you can be.” 

“A lot of people are depraved, Luna,” says Tanner, “There’s a lot more of the people I associate with than the moral types, such as yourself. There aren’t many benefits to not being sick and twisted, as you put it.”

“It’s not about the benefits!” Luna exclaims, “It’s about doing the right thing. Innocent people shouldn’t get hurt just so your life is a little easier. The rest of us work hard for what we do, and we don’t do it at other people’s expense. You - you kill people. You end their lives, and it doesn’t bother you at all. It’s sickening.” 

“By all means, have your fun on the ethical high ground,” he tells her, “The view of humanity must be much nicer up there.”

“It is, actually,” she hisses. 

“Are you sure about that?” Tanner asks snidely. “In our lines of work, we’ve both seen how bad people can be. I deal with them directly, and you observe their tendencies. There aren’t many of us left who can still claim to be ‘good people.’ I can’t imagine you run into many cases where the accused is actually innocent.”

Luna folds her arms against her chest and doesn’t drop her piercing glare. “It doesn’t matter how bad some people are - that doesn’t give you the right to kill anybody you’d like just because some asshole waves cash in front of you-”

He grins. There’s something to be admired in her tirades. Especially considering she was right. 

As she’s halfway through a sentence, he leans forward and captures her lips in his. She pauses, her back arching, and he kisses deeper. It’s very reminiscent of last night’s affairs amidst the nighttime wilderness. Only now, they were doing it against her lounge room window, where any neighbour strolling past could see. 

Luna breaks first, shoving him away from her. “You’re disgusting.”

“You didn’t seem to think so just now,” Tanner informs her, “Or last night, for that matter.”

Despite the fact that it’s hurting her injured shoulder more than it hurts him, Luna shoves him aggressively as she walks past him to the door. “Are you done yet, psycho?” 

All Tanner sees is an opportunity to rile her up even more.“You wound me, babe .”

It absolutely has the desired effect. If Luna had as much strength as she had anger, Tanner would be buried six feet underground by now. 

Her fists clench, and she swerves around, glaring ferociously. “Stop that.” 

“Stop what?” He says playfully.

“This!” Luna spits, “The romance agenda you’re pushing.”

Tanner smiles innocently. “You think I’m being romantic?”

Luna storms out of the house without another word, a flurry of exasperation and surmounting fury. 

“You know,” he calls out, following her out the door at a leisurely pace. “I didn’t realise you found last night’s date that successful. Not many girls are into corpse disposal.”

“You’re saying all this in broad daylight, by the way,” Luna scowls, opening the passenger door to his car and stepping inside. He rounds the vehicle and slides into place next to her.

“Ready for another date night?” Tanner continues, ignoring her, “We’ve got a new case. Inheritance, again. People are so unoriginal. I hope the redundancy doesn’t subtract from the charm of the outing.”

Luna glowers in annoyance. She’s fed up with him. “Just drive.”

“You’ve got experience in locating killers after they’ve committed a crime,” says Tanner, turning on the engine. “But how will you fare tracking down the victim?”

“I’m not helping you kill somebody,” Luna announces shortly. “I’m not.” 

Tanner grins. 

“We’ll see about that.”