Chapter Text
Johnny pulled his coat tighter around himself before shoving his hands inside its warm pockets. It was starting to get cold out, winter seemingly just around the corner. The cold air was causing his bad knee to act up again, forcing him to walk slower than normal. Which in turn forced him to be out in the cold for even longer, which obviously made his knee even worse. Ironic, wasn’t it?
His life had not ended up the way Johnny had planned it. Ever since he was a teenager, he’d always dreamed of joining the military. Partially because he’d always liked staying active and working out, and partially because he had a thing for men in uniforms, but mostly because he had believed it would be a sure way for him to help people.
And to be fair, things had been going well in the beginning. He’d joined the military at eighteen, just as he’d always planned. Not to brag—but he’d been good at it, too. Good at following orders, good at making hard decisions in a split second, good at rising in the ranks.
It was demanding work that took its toll on both his body and his mind, but Johnny had loved almost every second of it, and had never even entertained the thought of leaving it all behind.
But fate had a different plan for him, and one bad decision made in a split second was all it took to end his prosperous career forever.
His team had been heavily outnumbered, and been called to retreat. But their target had been right there, a piece of shit terrorist they had been hunting for months with little to no success. They couldn't allow him to get away, not now that they were this close. Who knew how long it might take them to get an opportunity like this again.
So instead of rising to his feet and escaping with the rest of his team, Johnny had lined up to take just one more shot. Nobody had noticed him in the abrupt chaos, the group of hostiles in question dropping their guard for only a moment as their enemy soldiers left the premises in a panic, giving Johnny just enough time to line up his shot, and deliver a bullet straight into their leaders' forehead.
Enemy KIA, target fucking destroyed.
Johnny didn’t plan on staying around to find out how the terrorists were going to retaliate, and had scrambled to his feet and made a beeline for the nearest door. Bullets rained around him, clinking against the floor and walls at the uncoordinated gunfire that ensued. All of them miraculously missed, until one didn’t.
Johnny’s first thought had been that it hurt like fucking hell. His second thought had been relief that it was just his knee, nowhere near any of his vital organs. Exfil was just around the corner, and he should be able to make it out there in one piece.
Everyone in his team had all survived, and they all celebrated as a result. Hands clapping his shoulder, shouting their support as he limped to an empty seat. Johnny only grinned and laughed alongside them, basking in the attention and brushing off all the concern. He would live—all of them would—and everything would be just fine.
Except that it wasn't.
He still didn’t quite know what the bullet in his knee had hit, which parts of the ligaments it had fucked up so deeply and irreparably that it would never work the same way again. His mind had drifted off to somewhere else, his ears ringing as the nurse with the infuriatingly sympathetic expression had broken the news that his leg would never be the same again. The words every person in the military feared more than anything.
There had been some hope, at first, even though it had mainly been false. Hope that physical therapy might be enough to get him back in fighting shape. And while it had helped, slowly and painfully so, even after months of daily exercises and pushing himself to his very limits, he was nowhere close to being back in the shape he was before the injury.
In the end, a permanent medical discharge was the only viable option left. The bright red letters printed over his file hurt more than Johnny could ever have imagined. And all due to a stupid knee injury. He’d been reassured that he'd get all the help he’d need to go back to living a normal, civilian life, as if he gave a shit about any of that.
And so, at twenty-five years old, Johnny had to find another path in life.
Any type of job that required him to be in physically good shape was now out of the question, which happened to include every single one of the other careers he'd considered as a kid. Being stuck in an office for the rest of his life had always been something Johnny had hoped to avoid, yet here he was, with no other alternatives left.
Forensic science had turned out to be a decent fit for him, at least. He still got a chance to stop bad people and help the innocent, just in a different way. And his military training still came in handy, his knowledge about bullets and guns and the effect they had on the human body better than most.
Johnny was doing fine, he supposed. Getting to play detective was entertaining enough, even though he still mostly stood on the sidelines to learn while Price and Kyle did most of the actual work, even though he'd been there for almost a year. At least he still got to regularly get out of the office, spending a lot of his time either in the labs or at some new crime scene. It was decent work, and Johnny would forever be grateful to his old Captain for using his connections to allow Johnny to get a foot in the door.
Johnny barely had the time to shrug off his coat before Price walked up to him.
“No need to undress, we’re heading out,” he said, stepping around Johnny to put his own jacket back on.
“Why? Something happen?” Johnny asked. He mentally cursed himself for not wearing his better knee brace that day, as that would at least have given him some protection against the cold.
“Ghost left another gift for us.”
The name immediately made Johnny perk up.
Ghost, the serial killer who had been plaguing the streets of Manchester for close to a year now, who they were still no closer to finding. He’d been shockingly good at keeping his identity a secret, not having slipped up a single time, even after a dozen murders in the city.
“Who’s the victim?” Johnny asked, falling into step beside Price. Price was definitely slowing his stride to make sure Johnny would be able to keep up, but Johnny decided to play nice and not call him out on it this time.
“A man named George Garner. He has a violent history of abuse toward his wife and children, but the evidence was deemed to not be strong enough, so he was released from jail just a few days ago.”
A man with a violent past who got off practically scot-free? He was just the type of person who Ghost went after, a perfect fit for the growing trail of bodies left in his wake.
Although he would never admit it out loud, Johnny was impressed with Ghost. As far as they knew, he had never killed anyone who—at least in his mind—didn’t deserve it. He was also kind enough to always leave a clear trail, letting the investigators know that it was him they were dealing with, and not some other crazed killer on the loose.
It was kind of sweet, in a fucked up way.
Even after having worked with the investigating team for so many months, there was still something undeniably cool about being able to duck underneath the police tape of a crime scene. Johnny had even invested in a fancy coat that made him look even more like a detective just for these situations. Not that he got the chance to show it very often, as all crime scenes were very strict with their dress codes, requiring him to cover up.
The victim lay on the sidewalk, only a few meters away from the entrance to the apartment complex he’d lived in. If it wasn’t for the fact that his eyes were wide open, it almost looked like he was sleeping. He was on his front on the ground, cheek resting against the wet pavement, one of his gloved hands clenched into a fist around an object that Johnny was almost certain would be just what he thought it was.
“The cause of death appears to be a stab wound to the back of the neck, right between the third and fourth cervical vertebra,” Price confirmed.
Johnny let out a low whistle.
“Leaving him paralyzed and slowly bleeding out on the ground without being able to do anything about it. Smart.”
“Any potential passers-by probably thought he was a drunk who’d passed out after one too many,” Kyle commented as he stepped up next to Johnny. “He’d probably been dead for quite a while before someone actually noticed the blood and called the police.”
“When’d you get here?” Johnny asked, shoving his hands inside his fleece-lined coat pockets to keep them warm. “You weren’t in the office when I got there.”
“I live a few blocks down the street and got the call just as I was about to leave for work,” Kyle said. “Another gift left by the Ghost, or at least that’s what the police believed. I'm inclined to agree with them.”
“Can we confirm that he's one of Ghost’s victims, then?”
“It does seem likely,” Price agreed as he joined the two men. He held out a small plastic bag, that held what looked like a little wooden figurine.
“What’d he leave this time?” Kyle asked as Johnny accepted the bag and turned it over, inspecting the handmade figure closely.
“Looks like a horse,” Price said in an amused tone, shaking his head. “Bastard likes leading us around in circles with those things. I'd rather he started leaving notes behind, it'd be much less of a headache to deal with.”
The wooden figures left behind were Ghost’s signature, something he’d left with every single victim since he’d started his killing spree an entire year prior. The objects left behind were seemingly random, with everything from miniature weapons to specific flowers to small everyday trinkets making an appearance. But there was never any doubt about who had left them behind. The public were still blissfully unaware of the figures, and about Ghost’s status as a serial killer over all. So it couldn’t be a copycat, hoping to get attention for the crime.
That, plus the fact that Johnny had gotten familiar enough with Ghost’s handiwork to recognize when he saw it. The figures were always skillfully crafted, clearly made by someone good with a knife. Every stroke made had been confident and broad, carving the general shape, but never adding in any unnecessary details. They were beautiful, really, and today's find was no exception.
That, and he always used the same type of birch wood. Not that they'd had any luck tracing its source to a specific area.
“Last time it was a sword, or a dagger—or whatever—wasn’t it? And now a horse? Do you think he likes messing with us, or does it actually have some meaning to him.”
Johnny carefully traced the figure with his thumb, feeling the sharp ridges even through the thin layer of plastic.
“It’s not a horse,” he said suddenly.
“I know what a horse looks like,” Price grumbled, arms crossed. “My eyesight isn’t that bad, son.”
Kyle cackled loudly next to him, and Johnny couldn't help but grin as well.
“No, look, it has a little horn on its head. It’s a unicorn,” Johnny said, handing the bag back to a sceptical Price.
“Great, that somehow makes even less sense,” Kyle said, stepping in closer to get a better look. “What does that mean then, you suppose? Do you think he’s comparing himself to one, making fun of the fact that we’ve still got nothing on him even with all the clues he’s left us?”
“Could be,” Price added with a heavy sigh. “Or it doesn’t mean a thing.”
Johnny’s fingers itched to reach out and grab the figure again, but refrained from doing it.
He found Ghost to be fascinating. So brutal, so effective, yet also so playful in the gifts he left behind for them.
“It has to mean something, even if he doesn't want it to,” Kyle continued. “There’s got to be some reason that he’s thought about them, don’t you think?”
“Unicorns are the national animal of Scotland,” Johnny chimed in. "Another potential connection, perhaps?"
"Right, I'd forgotten about that," Kyle chuckled, only for his expression to quickly turn into a frown. “So Ghost could be Scottish then? Has anything he’s left behind before been connected to Scotland in any way?”
Johnny worried his bottom lip between his teeth as he thought it over. He had them all memorized, every figure, every location they’d shown up in, and which order they’d been left in.
“I couldn’t say,” he said with a shrug. “Nothing obvious, at least. So it's still nothing but a far-fetched theory.”
Kyle opened his mouth to speak, but Price was faster.
“You can discuss this more on the ride back to the office, boys. For now, we have an actual job to do.”
Price turned away to get back to work. Kyle moved in closer to Johnny, leaning in to whisper in his ear.
"Maybe he's a children's author who's obsessed with sword-fighting unicorns."
Johnny rolled his eyes and elbowed him hard in the ribs.
"You heard the old man, back to work we go."
"I heard that!" Price called out, causing both Kyle and Johnny to laugh.
The small plastic bag with the wooden figurine was carefully placed into an envelope to be taken back to the lab for tests. Not that they were expecting to find any traces of DNA on it, apart from the victim’s own. Ghost had yet to slip up and leave any trace of himself behind, and Johnny doubted that he was about to start doing it now.
As with most of Ghost's murders, the victim had been killed with a single stab wound, carefully placed to do as much damage as possible. There had never been any survivors, all of Ghost’s victims succumbing to their injuries within a minute or two after being attacked.
There were never any witnesses, never any security cameras he’d accidentally walked past, never any DNA evidence left behind. They’d deduced that Ghost must be tied to the military or the police force in one way or another, as no civilian could have the skill to both kill as efficiently as he did, and disappear without a single trace left behind.
A rogue vigilante, taking the law into his own hands and delivering justice to those who deserved it.
Johnny turned to look at the apartment building's entrance. Where had Ghost been hiding when the victim had walked out the door? Had he been standing in the very same spot Johnny was in now, patiently waiting for hours, for the perfect time to strike?
The thought sent a shiver down Johnny's spine. What if he’d crossed paths with Ghost at some point in his life, without knowing it? They had both—allegedly—been military, and Ghost was probably watching over their investigation in some way to make sure that his gifts were received, so it wasn’t unthinkable that he might have seen him and not known who he was.
Because why else would he be leaving the gifts behind? It was clear that he wanted people to know that he existed, to understand why he did what he did. But the police hadn’t made his existence known to the public, and had no plans to do so. Did that make him angry? Or did he not care at all?
That exact topic had been discussed in circles back in the labs. Because while they didn’t have anything to do with the investigation apart from analyzing the causes of deaths and making sure that it was in fact Ghost who was the murderer, it was still fun to speculate.
Personally, Johnny believed that Ghost didn’t give a flying fuck about whether the public knew about him or not. He didn’t do it for attention or infamy, he did it to bring justice to those who hadn’t gotten it. As for the gifts, it still made sense he’d want it to be known that he was the one who’d killed his victims. That would avoid any unnecessary investigations into killers who didn’t exist, while he could remind the police force about how he felt about violent criminals not getting the punishment they deserved.
“Just don’t get too attached to the idea of Ghost you’ve made up in your head,” Price had warned him when Johnny and Kyle had been eagerly discussing Ghost’s potential identity. “Don’t make him out to be a good person, it won’t end well.”
And to his credit, Johnny had tried not to idolize Ghost too much after receiving the warning. But it was hard not to, especially when he got his hands on the file of the latest man he had murdered.
“Proper fucking piece of shite, wasn’t he?” Johnny grumbled, handing the file back to Kyle. “Can’t say that I feel any ounce of remorse for the bastard. I almost wish Ghost would have made him suffer for longer.”
“Agreed,” Kyle said. He put the file back into the growing pile that was Ghost’s victims.
“He’s been getting more active, hasn’t he?” Johnny commented, eyeing the stack of files. When he’d first started working under Price, Ghost didn't yet exist. It was only about a month after Johnny had joined the force that the first murder had happened, and another month for them to realize they had a potential serial killer on their hands. Now there were over a dozen, and the murders had slowly been getting more frequent.
“Wanna take bets on when the next body shows up?” Kyle asked.
“That’s fucked up, Kyle,” Johnny said, aiming a rubber band at him and firing it off straight at his jaw. “I say twenty-two days.”
“I say fourteen days then.”
“You think Ghost is gonna start killing bi-weekly?”
“Wouldn’t that be twice a week rather than once every other week?”
“Fuck should I know?”
“Bet you got too many blows to the head back in the army for that.”
Johnny kept spinning around in his office chair until he was dizzy. He hated afternoons like this, when there was nothing more for him to do and nothing for him to get started on, but he still couldn’t go home until the clock hit five.
“Any plans for the weekend?” he asked instead.
“Gonna go see my parents, I think," Kyle answered, throwing the rubber band back to him. It just barely missed the cup of lukewarm coffee Johnny still hadn't finished. "How about you?”
Johnny shrugged.
“Who knows,” he said, resuming his spinning. “Just staying home, I suppose.”
Johnny didn’t get up to much these days—didn’t know how to. Apart from Kyle, he didn’t really know anyone in the city. And he didn’t feel like getting to know anyone either. He just needed a bit more time, was what he kept telling himself. Time to get over the life that he had lost. Eventually he'd make the perfect little civilian with a perfectly ordinary and boring life.
He was brought out of his spiral of self-pity when Price exited the lab, triumphant and with a small plastic bag in hand.
“Great news, boys. We got something.”
Johnny straightened up. He immediately recognized the item in the bag to be the wooden unicorn figure that Ghost had left behind.
“What, really?” Kyle asked in disbelief, quick on his feet. Johnny wasn’t far behind him.
“A single fingerprint, one that didn’t belong to the victim. Police are comparing it with their database as we speak.”
Johnny gaped at him. After all this time, Ghost had finally left something of himself behind. Johnny had never thought he'd get to see the day.
“Let me see, let me see,” Kyle demanded, taking the small plastic bag out of Price's hands, as well as a stack of photos, showing every angle of the object. Johnny immediately stepped up beside him as Kyle flipped turned it around at all various angles, before pausing at the white dusting of a fingerprint.
Right in the middle of it, a singular, perfectly clear fingerprint. As if it had been placed there knowingly, deliberately.
Johnny couldn’t stop staring at it, accepting the figure and the photos from Kyle when he handed it over. They finally had something on Ghost. In just a few hours, they should know who he was. His name, what he looked like, who he was.
Johnny wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He’d come to admire Ghost and what he stood for. He didn’t really want him to get captured, and he doubted that Ghost wanted that either. So why had Ghost left his fingerprint behind?
“He left it deliberately,” Johnny commented.
“It does seem that way,” Price agreed, pinching at the skin between his eyebrows.
“It could belong to someone else, if he’s trying to throw us off his trail,” Kyle commented.
“We don’t even have a trail on him,” Johnny argued, idly stroking his thumb across the wooden figure, as if he’d somehow be able to figure out who Ghost was just by doing that. He shuffled through the photos, pausing at a close-up of the fingerprint. “And Ghost doesn't seem like the type of guy who'd want to put the blame on someone else either. He leaves gifts because he wants us to know that he did it, he wouldn’t want someone else to get blamed for his work.”
“But it can’t be his either, can it? Unless he suddenly wants to get caught.”
“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Price said. “Results will be back by Monday, then we’ll find out if we’ve found our Ghost or not.”
“By Monday?” Johnny exclaimed, finally looking up from the photo. “We’re gonna have to wait the whole bloody weekend for it?”
“That’s the police for you,” Kyle chimed in.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re on top of it,” Price said, stretching out his hand and waiting for a reluctant Johnny to place the plastic bag into it. “So by the time Monday rolls around, I’m expecting a file on our man on top of my desk, as well as a warrant out for his arrest.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m gonna miss our Ghost,” Kyle said with a little laugh.
“Warned you both to not get attached,” Price added with a grin. He nodded toward the pile of photos Johnny still held clenched between his fingers. “You can keep those if you like, John.”
“I just might take you up on that offer, sir,” Johnny laughed back.
“The resolution of your first big, serial killing case,” Kyle chimed in with a smile. “No need to stare at them so intently, though. I can buy you a playboy if that’s what you're after.
“Oh, piss off!” Johnny said with a laugh, giving Kyle’s shoulder a hearty punch.
A part of him was happy, elated even, because they’d done their job, and they’d turned up with something they’d been looking for for close to a year. But their relief and pride felt undeserved. Ghost had handed them this clue on a silver platter. It wasn’t the investigators who had caught onto him after a fuck up, or their team who had managed the impossible with some clever analytics work. No, it was Ghost who had decided that he wanted them to have this information.
But why? Johnny didn’t understand it.
Monday couldn’t come soon enough.
~~~~~~
Come Monday, the entire team showed up fifteen minutes early. Johnny was practically shaking, both from excitement, and a strange feeling of anxiety, as Price entered the office, file in hand.
He didn’t look happy, which made Johnny perk up with newfound hope that he really shouldn't have.
“They didn’t find him,” Price said, carelessly dropping the file down onto Kyle’s desk. “Fucker's still toying with us.”
Johnny got dangerously close to smiling. He knew it, there was no way that Ghost would pin this on someone innocent, and there was no way that he’d allow himself to get caught. Not when he had so much work left to do.
“What do you mean they didn’t find him? The print was as clear as can be!” Kyle exclaimed, opening the file to scan it for himself, as if Price had somehow managed to misread the entire thing.
“They looked through every record on hand—criminal, military, deceased, international—nothing turned up as a match for the print.”
“He really is a Ghost,” Johnny said, mostly to himself.
“It sure seems that way.”
Price was understandably pissed. The person he’d been trying to aid in finding was still nowhere close to being found, and as the senior investigator, he naturally took it the hardest.
“So, what happens now?” Johnny asked.
“We get back to work,” Price said, arms crossed over his chest. “We still have other cases to help with, until that fucker makes himself known again.”
Johnny and Kyle decided to avoid him for the rest of the day, not wanting any of his irritation to be directed towards them.
~~~~~~
Kyle ended up winning their little bet, when sixteen days after the last murder, the next body was found.
Also a man with a violent history, who had gotten released from a brief stay in jail after only a few short months. Also killed with a knife, one deep stab wound straight into each kidney.
The body had been found in an alley, only a few meters away from his car, which he had already managed to unlock by the time Ghost got to him.
“What’d he leave for us this time?” Johnny asked when Kyle stepped up next to him.
“Nothing as impressive as the last one,” he said, holding out the bag which Johnny had become more than familiar with over the last year. “Looks like the Ghost is starting to get lazy.”
“Could be all the holiday stress getting to him,” Johnny said lightheartedly as he grabbed the plastic bag. He turned it over, bringing it closer to his face to be able to read the four small letters carved into the object. “I bet even serial killers need to-”
Johnny cut off mid-sentence. His blood was pumping hard through his veins, echoing in his ears and drowning out everything else around him.
Kyle hadn’t been lying when he’d said that this carving was simpler than the previous ones. It was a simple rectangle with softened edges. It would have been hard to figure out what it was if it wasn’t for the four letters carved into the top.
‘SOAP.’
“It’s not that ugly, is it?” Kyle joked after Johnny had gone uncharacteristically silent.
Johnny forced himself to laugh, handing the item back with shaking hands.
“Just had a hard time reading it. Price might not be the only one who needs reading glasses.”
Did Ghost know? Or was this just a giant coincidence? It couldn't be, could it? It was too deliberate, the four letters carved into the little wooden soap with far greater care and precision than Kyle gave him credit for.
Johnny instinctively looked over his shoulder, scanning their surroundings, as if he was expecting Ghost to somehow just stand there, staring at him.
Ghost had always been leaving behind random items, perhaps this was no different. It probably wasn’t a big deal.
How would Ghost even know about his callsign in the first place? Had they met? What the fuck were the chances of that happening? But if they had, surely the police would have been able to find his fingerprints in their database.
“Something wrong?” Kyle asked, his expression turning a bit worried.
Johnny knew that he should let them know about his old callsign. Because while it wasn’t necessarily a link, it was still very much a potential threat, showing that Ghost knew more than he should, and more than he'd let on so far. And if it did turn out that the carving had been meant for Johnny specifically, they might get one of their first real clues about Ghost from it.
“Nah, just tired as fuck today,” Johnny forced a smile. The lie slipped out before he could truly go over his options. He didn’t want Ghost to get caught, and some sick part of him liked the fact that the gift seemed to indicate that Ghost preferred him to any of the others. That Johnny was special, in some way. "Barely slept last night."
He didn’t think that Ghost wanted to hurt him, he had no reason to. So keeping his callsign a secret, at least for now, wouldn't put anyone in any immediate danger. Right?
Kyle clapped him on the shoulder.
“Now that you mention it, you do look like shit today, but I didn’t want to bring it up,” he said with a grin, easily falling back into their usual banter.
“Oi!”
~~~~~~
“Police found something,” Price said the next morning, before Johnny even had the time to slip his coat off and grab himself a cup of mediocre morning coffee.
“That’s surprising,” he said dryly as he went to boot up his computer, watching the painfully slow thing slowly whir to life.
“It’s about Ghost.”
Johnny immediately tensed up, hanging onto every word. Had Price made the connection between him and Ghost's latest gift? He knew that he should have told him immediately. How stupid he'd been, assuming he'd be able to keep something like this a secret.
“What did they find?” Johnny asked, hopefully coming across as indifferent. His heart was beating so fast in his chest that it almost felt like he was the secret serial killer on the run.
If Price had noticed the change in his demeanor, he didn’t mention it.
“Got him on video,” Price said.
Johnny let out a shaky breath. It was good news for him, but the same couldn't be said for Ghost. Maybe he wasn't as good as he came across after all.
“What? Really?”
“Really. Come see for yourself,” Price said, nodding toward his computer screen.
Johnny was by his side so fast it was a miracle he didn’t flip his desk over in the process.
The video was blurry and dark, like most security footage was. Why it was still so shite in this day and age, Johnny would never understand, but that was beside the point.
The security camera was located across the street from where the last murder had taken place, one or two blocks down the street. Johnny’s mouth went dry. That was the entrance to the victim's apartment complex, and just at the edge of the camera feed, was the alleyway where the murder had taken place. The video was still paused, but the timestamp in the corner told Johnny that the video was from the time of night that the murder was assumed to have taken place.
“No fucking way,” Johnny murmured, mostly to himself as he leaned in closer to get a better look at the grainy footage. “But he’s always been so careful to avoid cameras, how did he screw up this time?”
At this point it was well known that Ghost, for whatever reason, knew where the cameras along his routes were located. He knew how to avoid them, and if he did need to pass some place that had them, the footage from that night would be mysteriously ruined.
“He didn’t,” Price said before pressing play.
For the first few moments, nothing happened, which wasn't too surprising. The footage had been captured in the early hours of the morning, when most people would still be asleep or just about to get out of bed.
Then the door to the apartment complex opened, and the man Johnny knew to be the murder victim stepped outside. He turned hastily, fishing his car keys out of his pocket as he walked toward the alley.
Just as he rounded the corner, another person stepped into view, following behind him. Johnny’s breath caught in his throat.
The figure was tall and broad, dressed in all black from head to toe, his clothing nondescript and loose. Not a single sliver of skin could be seen, his face covered in what looked to be a balaclava and a pair of dark sunglasses. An easy way to hide his identity when he needed to, but equally as easy to blend into his surroundings as soon as he took the balaclava off.
He must have been hiding just out of frame of the security camera, Johnny realized.
For being so large, Ghost moved quickly and efficiently. The victim had only managed to take another few steps, raising his hand to press a button on his car key, by the time Ghost had reached him. But before he could make it to the car door, Ghost had already stuck him straight in the back with what Johnny knew was a knife. There was no hesitation as he plunged the knife into the man’s other kidney as well, his precision scary given how quickly it had all gone down.
The man collapsed onto the ground, and Ghost took a few steps back, wiping the blood from his knife onto his own trousers before pushing it back into his jacket pocket.
He appeared to be completely calm, stoic, even, as he looked down at the man, who was silently fighting for his life beneath him. He wasn't dead yet, and wouldn't be for several minutes, but nobody would spot him until several hours later. He had died alone, terrified and cold, and with no clue as to who his murderer was. Which was still more than he deserved.
Ghost watched him for a few moments, as if admiring his handiwork. Then he suddenly turned, and although Johnny couldn’t see his eyes, he could have sworn that Ghost looked straight into the camera. He held up a gloved hand, the small wooden figurine—the fucking bar of soap—clutched between two fingers, as if he was showing it off.
Johnny felt as if he couldn’t breathe, a sensation that only multiplied when Ghost waved at the camera, before turning back to tuck the figure into his victim’s hand, right where they'd found it several hours later.
A few steps was all Ghost needed to walk out of the frame, and then he was gone, leaving Johnny to stare at the screen, silently hoping that he would return. Price paused the video, and Johnny visibly startled. He’d completely forgotten that Price was there with him.
“…Fuck,” Johnny said, unsure what else say about all that.
“Fuck, indeed,” Price grumbled. “The bastard's toying with us now, that much is obvious. I wonder what’s got him feeling so brave all of a sudden. And what are you smiling about, John?”
The loopy grin immediately melted off Johnny’s face.
“Sorry, sir,” he cleared his throat, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “I'm just glad that we finally get to see the bastard,” he added, hoping that Price would buy his half-assed excuse.
“At least it’s something we can use this time around,” Price hummed. “We know he’s male, for one, and we also know his height and his general build.”
“Three more things than we knew yesterday,” Johnny confirmed. He had to force his mind away from Ghost and back to the present.
“Aye. We’re heading back down there in a bit. Cops want us to do tests on every surface that fucker might have come in contact with, while they’re checking every other security camera in the city.”
“Understood.”
Johnny returned to his own desk with a newfound lightness to his step.
After all this time, he finally got to see Ghost. He finally had a body to match the name, and fuck, what a body it had been.
Johnny forced the thought to the back of his mind. This was neither the time nor the place for those kinds of thoughts.
Ghost had knowingly allowed himself to be captured on camera. He’d shown off the little bar of soap—Johnny's own namesake—the one that he had crafted with his own hands. And only a few weeks earlier, he'd left a fingerprint behind, practically gift wrapped for them to find. Surely it all had to mean something, no way in hell that it was just a coincidence.
A part of Johnny was terrified. Another, much larger part of him, was excited beyond words. So far it had all been fun and games, in a way. He could spend his days secretly dreaming about the mysterious serial killing vigilante cleansing the streets of Manchester, while said killer had no idea that he even existed.
But that wasn’t the case anymore, was it? Ghost had to know who was investigating his cases, and he'd specifically gone after Johnny. It couldn't all be a coincidence.
The bar of soap, a direct connection to his old callsign. The unicorn, a reflection of where he came from. And now that he thought about it, the carved dagger Ghost had left behind on the previous murder was eerily similar to the one tattooed on Johnny's forearm.
But it was already too late to do anything about it. By now Johnny was so invested that he didn’t want to resign and turn away, even knowing the risks, even knowing that he was getting too close to the case.
When he’d first started working under Price, he’d been warned that something like this might happen. That it was easy to get attached to the people they were aiding in trying to find—for better and for worse. Johnny just hadn’t realized how attached he’d gotten until now, and the guilt hit him so suddenly that he almost told Price about his callsign right then and there.
But in the end, he didn’t. He didn’t want to stop this thing developing between him and Ghost—whatever it was—just yet.
And to be truthful, he hadn't felt this alive since getting medical discharged.
~~~~~~
Johnny’s phone buzzed on the desk, but he ignored it. Price would surely glare at him if he were to check it now, especially when they had so much work left to do.
Not that Johnny was doing much of said work regardless, as he was having much more fun jumping over cacti and ducking under pterodactyls with the little T-Rex in his browser.
The team had been getting nothing bad bad news all day long. By now they had run tests on practically every surface in central Manchester, on the off-chance that Ghost had touched something with his bare hand. The police were desperate to find even a single trace of Ghost, and unfortunately, the extra workload had ended up in Price’s lap.
“Nothing on the handle either,” Kyle commented. "Unless you're looking for ketchup stains."
“How shocking,” Johnny said without missing a beat, making the T-Rex duck beneath a pterodactyl at the very last second.
“This is stupid,” Kyle said with a sigh as he opened another tab of test results, stretching his arms over his head. “The guy hasn’t left his prints on anything apart from the one time he did it on purpose. Are the cops really struggling so much with finding him on any security camera footage that this is the best way for us to spend our time?”
Johnny’s phone buzzed again, and he dared a quick glance at it, looking away just long enough to make his T-Rex run into a cactus and get him a game over.
“Fucking shit,” he muttered under his breath. Kyle chuckled next to him.
“They’re working on it,” Price said, although it didn’t sound like he believed it himself. "By checking every camera in all of Manchester, from what I've gathered."
“How hard can it be, finding a giant, bulky man like that?” Johnny added. “They don’t exactly grow on trees, do they?”
“Maybe he’s an alien,” Kyle commented.
“Or three kids in a trench coat.”
“What if he can transform into a moth, or a bat, or a cockroach.”
“Maybe he’s a vampire, and the only reason he showed up on that one security camera was because it had a special lens, or some shite like that.”
“Take a break, both of you,” Price spoke up before Kyle could continue.
Johnny pouted while Kyle only laughed.
“Might as well, we’re gonna be here late tonight, aren’t we?" Kyle said, rising to his feet. "Anyone named John want a coffee?”
“Aye!”
“Make that two of us.”
Johnny sighed as he picked up his phone, pushing his chair back a bit to stretch his legs out. His ass was already aching from sitting all day, and he couldn’t wait to get home and throw himself into bed. Although, by the stack of papers still untouched on Price’s desk, it didn’t seem like that was about to happen anytime soon.
As it turned out, the two notifications Johnny had gotten earlier had been two new messages. Probably some shitty, autumn sale or some scam hoping to get him to click a link that was so obviously not real, but Johnny opened the messages regardless.
/Blue looks great on you./
Johnny blinked at the message, and then frowned. Was this some kind of advanced new phishing attempt? If it was, it wasn't a very good one, since it had no instructions or where he was supposed to kindly donate his hard-earned pounds. That, and the message made no sense, and had been sent from an unknown number.
The follow-up message had been sent two minutes later, from the same unknown user.
/There’s a hole in the right sleeve./
Johnny was about to scoff and roll his eyes, until his blood suddenly ran cold. He scrambled to pull at the sleeve of his sweater, his blue fucking sweater, and there it was. The stitching had come undone, leaving behind a small hole. Noticeable, sure, but only for someone standing right next to him.
Johnny looked over his shoulder, as if Ghost was going to somehow be standing there in the middle of the room. Which he wasn’t, for obvious reason.
Because it had to be Ghost, right? There was no other explanation. The last few weeks had brought Ghost closer and closer, and by now Johnny half-expected to feel him breathing down his neck.
But it did beg the question—Where and when had Ghost seen him? How close had he been to see the tiny hole in his shirt? How had he gotten his number? And why Johnny, of all people?
Alright, maybe there were more than a few questions he needed to know the answers to. To begin with, he didn’t even know if it was Ghost who had sent him the messages. There was nothing insinuating that it had been him. It might as well be some old Grindr hook-up he’d ghosted ages ago who’d decided to give things another try, or some poor grandma who’d sent her message to him rather than to one of her grandkids.
And Johnny might have been able to convince himself that's what it was, if it hadn’t been for the fact that the person sending the message knew he’d been wearing blue that very day, and that his shirt had a hole in the very same spot described.
Johnny took three deep, calming breaths before tapping out a response with trembling fingers.
/Who is this?/
Johnny closed his eyes as he waited, mumbling a silent prayer to himself that it was just some poor grandma who’d put in her grandson’s number wrong.
His phone vibrated no more than a few seconds later. No way a grandmother could type that fast.
/I think you know./
Johnny stared at the screen. It had to be Ghost. It had to be. Nobody but a serial killer would put a period at the end of every single message like that.
/I’m not going to hurt you, Johnny./
Which wasn’t reassuring in the slightest. Quite the opposite, actually. Sure, Johnny might have been secretly day-dreaming about the version of Ghost he’d made up in his head. A man who was tall and mysterious and had a strong sense of justice that just happened to lead to him leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake. But the man he was fantasizing had nothing to do with the real Ghost, the serial killer still haunting their streets, who apparently knew Johnny’s name and phone number and was actively contacting him.
Johnny was on his feet before he knew it, walking over to Price’s desk with a handful of quick, determined steps.
He needed to come clean about it. He needed to tell him about the gifts, about the fact that Ghost had contacted him. This couldn’t be allowed to go on for any longer. It wasn't right.
Price glanced up at him, his brows furrowing in worry. “You doing alright, son? You look a little pale.”
Johnny glanced at the messages still open on his phone. All he had to do was turn the phone screen and let Price read them, and he’d understand. Then he’d be off the hook. He’d no longer be aiding a serial killer, and he could go back to doing his job—catching them rather than helping them.
“I’m- I’m not feeling so good,” Johnny said weakly. His phone screen turned black, and he didn’t make a move to change it. “Could I leave early? I think I’m coming down with something.”
The guilt was almost enough to eat him alive as Johnny shrugged his jacket on and stepped out into the cold November air. He took a few calming breaths, trying his best to calm his racing heart. It did nothing to help.
Ghost had contacted him, and he’d lied about it. He was a terrible person, but all he wanted to do was pick his phone back up and send Ghost another message. It wasn't as if there was any reason in stopping now, since he'd already gone too far.
/What do you want from me?/
The reply was almost immediate, as if Ghost had been sitting there waiting for him to respond. The thought of it made Johnny feel strangely warm inside.
/I just want to talk./
Ghost wanted to talk to him of all people?
/Why??/
This time, there wasn’t an answer for over ten minutes. By the time his phone buzzed in his pocket, Johnny had already limped his way home and closed the door behind himself.
/Did you tell anyone?/
At least Ghost didn’t appear to be watching his every move, which came as a relief.
Johnny hesitated for a moment, his thumbs lingering above the keyboard on his phone. He could lie, and tell Ghost that he'd told his boss about it. That they were tracking his number as they were speaking.
Johnny barely suppressed a shudder. What would Ghost’s reaction to that be? Would he be disappointed in him? Or was he expecting Johnny to betray him?
'Betray' was perhaps not the correct word to use, since it suggested there was some level of trust between them. As if him telling Price about Ghost would have been the morally bad thing to do, rather than what any normal person would have done in a heartbeat.
While Johnny was curious about what Ghost’s reaction to him being disobedient would be, he was much more excited to find out what Ghost would say when he was happy with him.
/I haven’t told anyone/
The response was instantaneous, as if Ghost already had the three words fully typed out, expecting Johnny to keep him as his dirty little secret.
/Good boy, Johnny./
“Fuck,” Johnny hissed to himself. “Fuck!”
This was bad, really fucking bad. Johnny already knew that there must be something seriously wrong with him, given the fact that he’d been constantly day-dreaming about Ghost and what kind of person he’d turn out to be for several weeks by now. He should feel disgusted, and violated, but the warm tingle that shot down his spine and went straight to his cock from reading those three words was enough to make his head spin.
Johnny was a terrible fucking person. He was withholding important information about a serial killer, purely because he liked the attention, because he liked feeling special. To any other person in the city, Johnny would be considered the scum of the earth, risking people’s lives just because he was enjoying the fact that Ghost was leaving gifts for him along with the trail of dead bodies.
But to Ghost, he wasn’t a bad person. To Ghost, he was his good boy.
Johnny groaned as he pressed the palm of his hand against his half-hard cock. Under normal circumstances he would roll his eyes at such blatant sweet talk, not to mention the fact that he hated being called Johnny. But this wasn’t normal circumstances, was it? Quite the opposite of it. He was fairly certain this was about as far away from normal as one could get.
Johnny kept reading the three words over and over from beneath heavy lids, his lips parted to make room for his heavy breathing. He cursed loudly and undid the button on his jeans, not bothering to unzip them before shoving his free hand inside his boxers. He stroked his thumb over the head, groaning as he found it already wet with precum.
He was down so bad, so fucking bad. All he knew about Ghost was that he was tall and broad, and that he was a killer. And a damn good one too. Apparently that was enough for Johnny’s cock to stiffen to the point it nearly hurt.
Would Ghost treat him nicely, like he was the most precious thing in the world? Like Johnny was better than everyone else, allowing him to be the one person to get close to him? Or would he be rough and demanding and push him around? Would he press a knife to Johnny's throat to keep him still as he rutted against his ass, would he claim and take without a care in the world for Johnny’s own well-being?
Johnny licked a stripe over his palm before starting to fuck into his fist desperately, searching for a quick, shameful orgasm rather than a good one.
Ghost’s hands would probably be even larger and more calloused than his own. How could they not be, when he spent a considerable amount of his time playing with knives, whether he was using them to carve wooden sculptures or to sink them into skin and meat.
Johnny shuddered as he imagined what the cold, dangerous metal would feel like against his overheated skin. Slowly tracing down his chest, nicking the skin and drawing blood every time Johnny drew breath into his lungs. Would Ghost hurt him on purpose? Would he carve into Johnny’s skin like he did his victims? Or would he be gentle, treating Johnny like he was the only good thing in a rotten world?
Johnny came with a loud cry, his hips stuttering as he kept fucking his own fist, making a mess of his boxers.
He closed his eyes as he came down from his orgasm, taking deep breaths to calm his racing heart.
“Fuck.”
Johnny pulled his hand out of his boxers, grimacing as he wiped his cum-soaked fingers against his jeans.
He was still clutching his phone in his other hand, Ghost’s messages staring back at him accusingly.
With shaking, sticky hands, Johnny tapped out another message.
/What’s your name?/
He hesitated for only a second before adding a second.
/I want to see you/
Johnny held his breath, waiting impatiently for those three little dots to appear, signaling that Ghost was typing.
What he got instead was a small ‘could not be delivered’ accompanying the obnoxious, red exclamation mark next to both his messages.
Johnny’s shoulders dropped in defeat. Why had Ghost left him? Had he taken too long to respond? Or had he somehow known that Johnny had just whacked off to the thought of him? Was he disgusted with him?
Johnny swallowed down the mixture of disappointment and shame threatening to fill his chest all the way up to his throat. He didn’t know which feeling was worse—being disappointed that he could no longer talk to Ghost, or feeling ashamed that he’d just jerked off to a text message he’d gotten from a serial killer.
One thing was for certain—Johnny was in desperate need of a long, cold shower.