{trigger warning: mention of rape, descriptions of torture and murder, gore, lots of blood}

"I need to kill again."

Spencer paused for three seconds, static coming through the pay phone Tyler was using just outside of his and Josh's hotel. "We just killed last week, we need to space out our kills more. You said so yourself."

"Yeah, but-" Tyler sighed, his leg bouncing against the plexiglass of the booth. "Brendon's back, and he won't go away."

"You can't just kill someone each time your psychosis starts to act up-"

Tyler slammed his hand in the payphone buttons, his anger spiking. "Damnit, I'm not crazy."

"I never said that, Joseph."

"You're implying it. I'm not-" he scoffed. "You did this to me. You and Urie. You ruined me."

"We made you an artist." Spencer sounded overprotective of Brendon, even offended on the dead psychopath's behalf. Tyler would've laughed if he wasn't so anxious.

"No, you made me a killer!"

He heard Spencer sigh into the phone. "Look, I'm in Colorado right now. I can't stop you if you kill, but be careful. Don't fuck it up for us now that we've almost reached fifty."

"Remember which one of us has an IQ of 186."

Tyler slammed the phone down and exited the booth, scanning the road and walking down the only way he knew. He remembered a case his team had done in Sacramento a 456 days prior. There were four suspects, all of them with a criminal past that should've kept them in jail for the rest of their lives. And they all still lived in California.

The first one he killed was Ester O'Hare, an older woman with a nasty secret. She'd killed four of her five husbands yet somehow got out with an insanity plea. Alice lived the closest.

She didn't even suspect Tyler when he showed up at her door at eleven o'clock at might, tired and hungry. Not until he was inside the house and at down in the kitchen where he grabbed the closest knife and burying it in her stomach. Twenty. Four. Times. It wasn't fun, though, she didn't even fight back.

So he took the bus to Sebastian Springer, a scamming multimillionaire who was transferring money given to him for charities and keeping it for himself. The bastard lived in welfare now, but that punishment was nothing compared to what he did to the people he scammed. He was harder to get close to, but Tyler didn't mind the challenge.

All he had to do was knock.

Tyler stabbed him too, with pair of sheaths left on the front porch this time, but only a measly twelve times. Once he hit an artery, Sebastian bled out nearly instantly, and the kill lost its sting. Plus, he had to keep his energy for the last two. The night was long, but not forever.

Holden Richards didn't even see Tyler coming when he broke the lock on his window, wielding the same sheaths and tearing him open. He'd raped three twelve year olds and only got five years in total for his disgusting crimes. If anything deserved to be murdered, it was that scum of the earth.

Then there was the special someone.

With this one, Tyler took his time. He'd rushed the last three in a frenzy, but he didn't want to with this last unsuspecting victim.

The older man opened his front door, eyes barely open. He wore a wife beater and sweats, and had a beer in one hand.

"Don't you know what time it is?" He hissed, squinting at Tyler.

Tyler tried to show him fear and desperation. He shivered, the heavy rain helping him display his helplessness to the gruesome killer right in front of him. "Sorry for the trouble, but I- I need to use a cellphone. Can I borrow one?"

He looked felt up and down before huffing and opening his door wider. "Get in, you're gonna catch a cold in that rain."

Inside was the opposite of what the man looked like. Not a hair was out of place in that home. It was almost obsessional. Tyler noticed that he had several books from Brad, who'd written two bestsellers. The man looks ragged and dirty, not clean and organized like his home implied. He recognized his appearance as a ruse, the same one Tyler was using against the man himself.

Daniel Harper, renowned serial killer. He killed six families and framed documented and undocumented immigrants just to try and start a race war. The police almost got him, but there wasn't enough evidence. He even confessed, but then claimed it was under duress.

He was the embodiment of evil.

"Aw, I thought I was," Brendon cooed from behind Tyler, making the hairs on his arms prickle.

Tyler ignored the hallucination and followed Daniel to his kitchen, where he had a landline. He thanked him and watched as the man went back and sat in his recliner. Why did people trust lowly, passive looking strangers? That's how you get killed.

"What are you waiting for?" Brendon scoffed. "Kill him already."

His knives were beautiful, all different sizes and blade shapes, but Tyler ended up choosing a jagged toothed knife about a foot and a half long. It looked sharp enough to cut through bone. Just what the doctor ordered.

He disappeared into the hallway of Daniel's house, waiting in the shadows of a broom closet for him to notice that he was missing. Tyler wanted to laugh, this was too easy.

"Where the hell did he go?" Daniel muttered, the squeak from his recliner alerting Tyler that he was approaching.

As soon as Daniel reached the first door opening, where Tyler was standing, he lurched forward, slicing open his upper arm. Daniel yelled and fell back into the wall, blood already pouring down his side in red waves.

"Oh, my god," he groaned in pain, pressing a hand against the gash. The bone showed.

Tyler smiled and stepped into the hall. "Hurts, doesn't it? Probably doesn't hurt as much as watching your whole family burn alive in your own home."

"W-what?"

Daniel started to walk down the hall, away from Tyler, but he was quicker. Tyler quickly crouched and felt the pleasure of the knife tearing right through the flesh and muscle of Daniel's calves.

He screamed loud, hitting the floor with a squelch, yet he still kept trying to escape. Tears and snot rolled down his face.

"Please, don't kill me," he whimpered, only able to move his one good arm left. "I'll do anything."

Tyler let Daniel get most of the way down the hallway before following him, dragging the knife along the wall. The blade ripped right through the wallpaper and plywood, almost getting stuck into the insulation. He jerked';? the knife down the wall, a chuckle bubbling in his chest.

"Oh, this is more entertaining than I thought it would be," he sighed, stopping right in front of the cowering criminal. "Taking all the power you had for myself. Watching you bleed out. Don't worry, I avoided all your major arteries. You're going to die slowly, just like the families you murdered."

"Who- who are you?"

"I'm karma," Brendon said.

"I'm karma, you douchebag." Tyler jammed the knife near Daniel's hip and dragged it down, reveling in his screams. It sounded like music to his ears. He hadn't seen that much red since Brendon, so he couldn't stop himself when he stuck his hand into the open wound and scooped a handful of blood.

Blood. Hot, sticky blood, warm and inviting. Tyler licked from the bottom of his palm to the tip of his middle finger, grimacing at the taste.

"I thought it'd be more satisfying than that," he said, taking the knife out and reenacting what he just did to Daniel's other leg. "Guess I'm not as sick and twisted as you."

Daniel was still screaming, with breaks in between to catch his breath. His chest rose and fell at a rapid speed, blood bubbling from his lips. As so close to unconsciousness as he was, Tyler wanted to enjoy this for just a little longer.

Tyler laughed hysterically and started carving smiley faces into his chest and stomach. "Scream all you want, Daniel, but nobody's going to hear you! I made sure of it!"

They were in the middle of Daniel's property. The police wouldn't find his body for some time.

He knew he was supposed to feel sick. He knew that he shouldn't enjoy this so much, that his heart shouldn't swell in delight with every slice and stab to Daniel's mangled body. But he couldn't care.

"You're just like me. An artist," Brendon whispered in his ear.

As the icing on top, Tyler sliced open Daniel's arms, going almost to the bone, then cut his throat open, nearly decapitating him. He wiped the knife off on his jeans and stabbed it into Daniel's chest, leaving it there. That was all he remembered.

Anything after that was a blur of cleaning and bus riding. Tyler woke up in the afternoon clean of all blood and snuggling with Josh, who probably didn't even suspect what he spent all night doing.

All was well.