Rule number one: Don’t get caught.

It trumped the rule about killing innocent people, but this was his mistake and he didn’t want to take her life when she’d been falsely accused. He’d been so close to finishing the kill, so close to driving that blade through her intercostal muscles into her heart. He felt a surge of adrenaline as he visualised the blood flowing neatly out of the wound, pooling on the table, dripping onto the plastic-covered floor.

He took a deep breath and stared at the wall while he thought through his options, he could kill her, or he could let her go... Neither of those ideas sat right with him. Killing her wasn’t fair, he’d made a grave error and she shouldn’t have to pay for it- there would be no justice in that. He couldn’t very well let her go either; there was nothing to stop her going to the police. He couldn’t leave her here, she could escape or die or he’d have to take care of her. He couldn’t have such blatant loose ends hanging about.

There was another option, a daring and risky option, but an option nonetheless.

Helena had stopped struggling and lay watching his face for a clue as to what would happen to her, she was coming to a similar conclusion to him- he couldn’t set her free now that she’d seen his face and knew how he worked. The obvious thing to do would be to kill her and forget she’d ever existed. Her life was slipping away and it was out of control in the hands of this psychopath, all the things she hadn’t accomplished all the relationships she hadn’t kept up with, all the dreams she’d had and never acted on. She was alone, getting older, with a half finished career and a family who never saw her. It all seemed so clear now, she’d wasted her measly life and now it was going to come to an end, a spectacular way to go she supposed in some crazy way, not many people died at the hands of a mass murderer who clearly had some kind of code he kept to considering his little speech earlier.

“I don’t want to kill you.” He looked down at her and stood up.

She felt a ‘but, I have too’ coming on.

“But I can’t let you go.”

Here we go.

“I can’t guarantee you wouldn’t be a threat to my lifestyle.” He walked around to the other side of the table.

“How would you like to help me find the killer of Tammy and her son?” He asked her pointedly.

Find. Or kill?

“Uhh” she stuttered. It seemed unbelievable that she had to choose between someone else’s life and her own, but at least it was someone who in her eyes deserved to die.

“And what would that entail?” She seemed decidedly calm considering the fact that she was still tied down to the uncomfortably old wooden table in her basement while a serial killer stood beside her. But this light at the end of the tunnel seemed to scream hope.

Dexter almost smiled at her question.

“You’ll have to be an accessory to murder.”

“But I could still tell the police after you let me go and explain that you made me do it.”

“And if you tried I’d stop you.”

She stared at the ceiling and thought about his offer, he was trusting her to some extent. He was also threatening her. But she didn’t really have a choice; she wanted to live, perhaps now more than over. Plus this bastard deserved to die, maybe this serial killer had the right idea, maybe she wanted to a part of bringing justice.

“I’ll do it.”

Dexter didn’t know whether he was surprised or not, but he wasn’t disappointed by her answer. Now he had to figure out how to work her into his schemes, how to make her want this person dead.

His brand of justice was illegal, but fair. A life for a life, or lives.