Every article said the same thing.

"...lured the victims to his home.. drugged and then strangled.. dismembered the body.. kept certain remains."

After taking as many notes as possible, the twenty-five year old detective set his pen off to the side and removed his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Too many similarities," he mumbled to himself before rising from his chair to head to his kitchen. As he pulled out a bottle of beer from his refrigerator and popped the top off, he began to think. Copycat killers weren't uncommon - not at all - but this one takes the cake for being the most thought out.

Every case of the Dahmer murders had explicitly gone into descriptions that made his stomach do the most violent flips; and now they were being recreated down to every last detail. The man pinched the bridge of his nose again before going to his living room. Upon turning on the television, he was met with the same broadcast that he'd seen for the last couple of weeks; a warning that a Jeffry Dahmer Copycat Killer was on the loose in the small town of Mt. Arlington, New Jersey.

No one expected this to happen; especially not in a place like this.

Maybe that's why the killer chose this town, or maybe it was with a completely different intent.

Who could really see inside the mind of a killer, anyway?

*     *     *

Back behind his desk at work, Brendon Urie continued to go over the case files and notes that he had taken the night before on the Dahmer case. The only thing different about this case compared to Dahmer's, was that the killer was leaving certain remains behind at the scenes where he probably picked up his victims.

Some of the bleached and severed remains of four victims have surfaced so far, according to his notes;

21 year old William Beckett - remains were found on a stretch of highway leading outside of Mt. Arlington heading toward the next town.

21 year old Gabriel Saporta - remains were found outside of Mt. Arlington Church of Christ, wrapped in cellophane and doused in sulfuric acid and water.

20 year old Alexander DeLeon - remains were discovered in a large forest outside of Mt. Arlington (no indication that the victim was apprehended here, will dig for more information)

22 year old Kenneth Harris - remains found outside of popular Mt. Arlington bar, The Snake Pit, a week after Harris was reported missing - remains were in a large trash bag

There were too many similarities for this to have just been a coincidence, and once the police let the news of a Copycat Killer break loose, there was nothing left to do but track down whoever was causing all of these violent killings before it was too late.

Just as Brendon was about to file away the rest of his notes, the head of his tact team burst into the office area with a serious look on his face. "Everyone on call," he started, his voice hard and set as he peered at the team. "We've found another one."

*     *     *

The dark haired male followed the rest of his team in his patrol car, his hand covering his mouth as he was mentally preparing himself for the worst. The most recent victims hadn't been much younger than him; but they all followed the same type that Dahmer would have preyed on - young, attractive males who primarily worked in the industry of selling sex.

These men would be at their wit's end, struggling to find shelter for a night or their first bite of food in days when they would be approached. Seeing as prostitution is illegal these days, these boys had to be difficult to locate; the perpetrator had to know where and when to find the victims in order to make a timely disappearance so no one spotted him.

Brendon continued to let these thoughts plague him as he drove up to the crime scene, brows furrowed as he realized the forensics team was here as well. The forensics team doesn't show up unless there's pieces at the scene that could be deemed as evidence that could contain DNA.

He parked his car and exited, walking toward his team and standing next to his partner, Brooks Betts. Betts was about a year younger than Brendon, but also taller than him by a few inches with sharp facial features and bright eyes that didn't appear as bright today. As Brendon made his way next to him, he nudged his shoulder slightly, nodding toward the scene. "What've we got?"

Betts sighed softly, his arms crossed as he kept his eyes on the coroner that was gathering up the remains. "The bone structure looks too unrefined to be an adult," he started, motioning toward the bones. "Coroner things he's in his teens, anywhere between sixteen and eighteen based on the way his bones look like they haven't reached their full adult size limit." He then shook his head, still not turning to look at Brendon as he sighed again. "Just think if that is a kid, man," he said, disappointment and sadness lacing his tone. "It's sick enough that someone's targeting sex workers, but fucking kids?"

The older male shook his head as well, his eyes hard set on the scene in front of him as well. "This whole ordeal is absolutely fucked," he said under his breath just as they were given the 'okay' to go speak to the witness. As they made their way over to the distraught looking male, Brendon noticed a small, plain silver jacket pin lying on the concrete. He furrowed his brows and leaned down to retrieve it, flipping it over to notice a set on inscribed initials on the back. Looking at the pin confusedly, he opened a small evidence bag and placed it inside before slipping it into his pocket as they came upon the witness.

"Hello, there," Betts said as he and Brendon pulled their badges from their pockets. "I'm detective Betts, this is detective Urie. We'd like to ask you a few questions about this incident - starting with your name please."

The boy in front of them nodded, and that's when Brendon finally got a good look at him. He looked much younger than the two detectives, smaller than the two of them as well. He had tear tracks on his pale face as he nodded but kept his arms wrapped around his knees.

"A-Andrew Mrotek," he said, his voice nearly void of emotion as he turned to look up at us. Just as Betts was about to ask him another question, he looked at us with deep, saddened eyes. "I-I've been following the news," he spoke in a rushed voice. "I know that this guy is placing his victim's ... remains at the spot where he p-picked them up from." His eyes began to fill with tears again as he shook his head and pulled his knees closer to his chest. "This is m-my apartment, that bag of bones was placed at my front door step."

Each word Andrew spoke, his octave and volume became higher as whatever fear he had been feeling finally settled in. His skin became paler and his body looked more tense than it had when the two detectives arrived, and this fresh set of tears began falling down his cheeks. "That means his last known location had to be here," he said painfully. "I just .. I hope it isn't who I think it is."

Brendon and Betts looked at each other, eyebrows raised before turning back to the kid. "Who do you think it is," Brendon asked, nodding at him as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Andrew shook his head, rubbing the heels of his hands against his eyes before breathing in deeply. "My best friend," he said in a pained whisper. "Adam Siska. He left here about three nights ago. he was just going home, he had work the next morning. But his roommate said he never came home.."

Betts began jotting down notes before he and Brendon were being called over by the coroner. Another detective took over speaking with Andrew while the two men walked over, nodding toward the forensics team as they made their way to the coroner. "What do you got for us, Zack," Brendon said as they came to a stop in front of him.

"Well," Zack started as he opened up the bag with the bones in it, earning equally disgusted faces from both Brendon and Betts. "It seems as though our killer is starting to get a bit sloppy with their handiwork."

Brendon shot a look over to Zack, single eyebrow raised as he looked at him. "How so?"

Zack nodded again, using one of his gloved hands to pull out what appeared to be a femur, holding it our for presentation to the detectives. "There's still remnants of flesh coating the bone," he said, pointing gingerly toward the area he was talking about, "and, just like the others, it looks like the bone has been cut with a table saw or hack saw, but there are distinguishable misshapen marks on the rest of the bone where it looks like our perp had missed his cutting area and nicked the bone he intended for us to see."

Brendon looked over what Zack was showing them, his brows still furrowing with concentration as he felt his hand clench at his sides and his insides churn. The killer was becoming careless with his tactics, that much he can note easily. Even little mistakes like this could be the bridge between the gap of finding out the perp's identity and losing the trail forever.

Betts continued looking over the piece of bone that Zack was showing them as Brendon stalked off, his hand covering his mouth as he walked away. Soon enough, Betts made his way over and put a hand on Brendon's shoulder, silently asking if everything was fine. He nodded and waved off back toward Zack. "Seeing those things still makes me uneasy," he said softly. "Like you said earlier, this whole thing is sick."

The two detectives then gathered the rest of the information and evidence that they needed before heading back to their offices. As Brendon took his notes, images were flashing in his brain of all the remains they had found up at this point, and the faces of the men they belonged to. They were young, all of these men; young and full of hope that they wouldn't be stuck in whatever situations they were in for the rest of their lives. Ambitious men was what they were, regardless of how they were making their living at this point.

It made Brendon sick.

As night rolled around and he was now officially off the clock, he packed up and headed home, his brain racing as he drove. Pulling up to a stoplight, the idea that the killer was getting careless was still running fresh in his mind as he looked at the nail marks caked in dried blood that he hadn't realized he'd made in the palm of his hand.

Once back at his home, the twenty-five year old placed his coat on the rack in the hallway before walking into his kitchen to grab a beer. As he traveled through the dimly lit house to the living room, he felt the weight of a small plastic bag in his pocket, humming to himself as he placed his beer on the coffee table. He fished through his pocket, pulling out the small bag with the silver pin inside, staring at it intently.

He read over the initials again and again, shaking his head softly before taking out the pin and putting it back in it's place with the remaining set on his mantel before disappearing into his bedroom.

*     *     *

// a/n:

uhhhh....

editing? 🥰

dedicated to vanillabeannnnnn ❤️