The air was crisp with the smear of death.

There was no crying, no shouting or hysterical wails that should have accompanied a scene of death. Yet, the silence seemed to heighten the gravity of the horrors even more. Miles licked his lips and kept his eyes solely on the burnt body that lay face up, blank sockets staring into the ceiling with the ashes scattered across their skin. His throat constricted, the smoke still very present even though the window had been forced open.

His eyes gripped the clock that sat at the north wall of the small bedroom.

1:40am.

It was obvious from the intense fumes that still paroled the environment, forcing him to wear his eye patch and a nose mask, that the murder had been committed not long ago.

He took a sweep of the room as he heard a barrage of steps behind, dismissing it to be the CSIs. The room was splotched, a multitude of wrappers were scattered across every nook and cranny. Mud stains likely from a pair of boots also coated the floor, not leaving out the amount of clothes that sat by the corners in all their smelly glory.

He felt a headache drill into his skull, forcing him to take a deep breath to steady himself. He opened his eyes and blinked rapidly before inhaling deeply.

Miles walked to the window and like the other time, the first thing he noticed was a thin sheet of ice spread across the surface, a light blue, sparkling slightly underneath the light of the full moon.

Miles touched it and like last two times, it was cold, icy.

He noted his down in the note, trying to form a mental connection to the two earlier deaths. He turned back to the body, still as cold and silent as the night around him, devoid of life or the hubub of excitement. The quietness that only death could bring held him down. With a heave, he forced himself to move forward and look at the body closely.

Did that mean we were dealing with a serial killer?

Like the other two, his body was burnt up to the degree like his father and Wesley. The thought of his father again made a rush of anger hit him like lightning. He cracked his knuckles to try to stifle the bubbling rage that he felt boiling up on the cauldron.

The Chief's question from earlier still wrung in his head like a bulb that refused to switch off, unable to stop itself from emanating artifical white light.

Did he still want to assist in the case?

That was moments before another call came in, claiming another person was burnt to death. Because of his father's involvement in a little boy's death, the chief believed that it complicated things much more than before.

His stomach was tight, his mouth caked in the bitter soak of bile. He crossed his hands over his chest as he wordlessly watched the body being catered away, burns and all. Miles tried to chain down the flurry of thoughts that wanted to take flight, the goosebumps that wanted to arise at the memory, at the awakening of the dead boy's face.

Distracting himself, he continued to study the room but even then, his mind was hurled back to the only question that pestered his mind since it slid out of the Chief's mouth.

Should he really let Alice handle everything?

It roiled in his chest, sliding down as it aroused different feelings. His throat became dry as he continued to think about the extent of damage his father had done. That same hollow feeling that used to encapsulate him when he was younger struck him once again, sucking out whatever semblance of peace he should have had like a hungry black hole.

But even then, that need for justice burnt within him, as well as the need for the answers that had now awakened in his every chiming mind. A hunger for the answers that gripped at his chest, waiting to be discovered. Despite the glimpses of his past that had worsened these past few days or the sadistic feelings that had been stirred up more often than not, the want of the answers to the questions that had come. To stop whoever it was that seemed to kill out these men, whether innocent or not. Even if they were on the wrong side, which two had already proved to be, that only meant the perpetrator gave them a fast way out of whatever punishment that they should have been given.

With that in mind, he braced himself, arms tightening.

That was the fire that pulsated in his chest amidst the hollowness, pain and rabid anger, and he would keep it that way.

***

Miles left the car, churning on the information he had received about the latest victim.

Andrew Lii.

Born and lived here all his life. He was a waiter, worked in a restaurant across from his house on the street. A quiet one, according to those they had questioned. He didn't have a lot of material possessions, neither did he have anything that anyone could put against him. Assuming that the presence of the ice, however it was formed, meant that they were all somehow connected, not leaving out his death by third degree burns, that only meant that he had to keep his eyes peeled for anything that looked off.

From all the questioning earlier, all the information only gave the assumption that he was someone that no one necessarily paid attention to, often did his best and was very much overlooked and easily pushed around.

Miles would have to look more into his last whereabouts, given that he was certain that it may lead to whatever reason he had been killed. With that, he focused his attention on the house and knew he needed to sort out whatever it was that was wrong with his sister.

Quickly, with a renewed sense of urgency, he walked until he had gotten into the house.

He first removed his shoe and stacked it neatly with the other row of shoes layered on the shelf. In his socks, he walked a couple of paces before washing his hands in a sink.  Not wasting time, he strutted down to the last room on the hallway. He stopped at the door. The faint smell of paint was discarded by the thick air freshener that was fixed to the wall, brightening up the fragrance that romanced his nostrils.

He knocked.

He waited for a second before he knocked again.

He listened in for a moment and it was only silence that lingered in the air.

Cautiously, he turned the door knob and let himself into the room. His entry was followed by a light creak.

The first thing he laid his eyes on was his sister who was seated on the bed, staring off into space. For a moment, he just stood there, as rigid as ever, his muscles tensing instinctively. A flurry of childhood flashbacks swamped his head as his mind whirred back to times where he would be seated at the extreme part of the living room, sitting quietly with nerves as frazzled as jelly while his parents and sister would all be cuddled up on the couch. That same jealousy heated his veins as familiar words began to seep out of the pores in his mind, like ants that ran out of their waterlogged anthill.

Freak.

Disgusting work of nature.

Ugly.

A number of faces began to fuzz to sight in his mind, taunting teenagers and children blurring him from the world for a moment as he was suffocated by this wave of recollections. His stomach flipped. His lips dried. He shook his head, disorienting the wave of memories that quaked his whole being.

He inhaled again to still the tension that bunched up his muscles as if preparing for a battle of wits and war. He tried to slacken his tight jaw, gnawing down on the unease that ate away at his system.

Before he could rethink his decision, he strode forward, his steps loud in the deafening silence. He stopped at the edge of the bed, seeing the sheets obviously ruffled, the pillow pushed to one side, tilting away. He felt that same harsh feeling grip his mouth and the urge to tell her off for not laying the bed right smothered him but he discarded it quickly.

"Bella." He tried to quell the venom in his mouth. She jerked out of her stupor  and met his gaze with hollow eyes.

"We hav-e to talk." He said mechanically, the air around them thickening with tension that made them as statues even though they were the only breathing beings in the room. She didn't reply, she just looked down, not a single word of note on her lips.

The silence that held her was a stark contrast to the fiery nature that she embodied. Mere days ago, she was arguing vehemently with him about how  she wanted to avenge their father. His lips curved into a bitter smile at the thought.

Life always had away of striking you in the back.

"I-"

"The woman came over today, didn't she?"

"Yea-h."

"What did she say?"

By now, there was a pique of hope in her voice as though maybe he had come to deliver the news that the woman had been lying all along. If not for the disgust that he felt at the moment, he would have almost laughed at her hope. She still believed in the man, still blindly held onto the illusion that he was still the same as he was before.

"He kill-ed him."

Now, she turned to him, eyes wide and her dark face covered with pillow marks and he noticed her eyes were ringed with bags. Though that wasn't what ticked him off the most, it was the anger that glowed in her blue eyes, making them turn to a darker shade.

"No, I don't believe it, he wouldn't. She has no evidence! How could you believe her?!"

The anger that was fueled by the obvious love she still had for him was sickening. For a moment, he almost wanted to tell her about the abuse, to tell her about the alcohol and the pretense and the lies he had told. He almost wanted to show her the scars that lingered on his skin, forever a tableaux of the pain and misery of a man that had no control over his own emotions. But, as always, he stilled himself and in the most quiet voice, despite the tremble that still quaked down the length of his body, he spoke,

"Loo-k, just lea-ve that aside-"

"No, we're not leaving that aside! This is your father, our father! Even when you were being such a snobbish brat, he still loved-"

"You don't kno-w what you're talkin-g about." His voice shook slightly but it went unnoticed by her as she shot up to her feet, hellbent on defending him. With her eyes burning, she pushed a hand to his chest which made him take a step back.

"I do know. I know you hated father for no apparent  reason! I know all you cared about was your stupid, snobbish self! I know you hated everything about our family from the beginning, hated me, hated dad! I know that you must have had such a great life while I was out there having to deal with all of mother's hurtling demands!"

After she said this, there was silence. Miles could only stare at the floor as he could feel every inch of the blood in his body boil beyond comparison. He could hear his screams so clearly, so visibly that he felt like he was in the swarm of memories altogether. Pummel after pummel, knock after knock, the voices in his head continued to echo with such great a anger that he couldn't bare watch.

"Look at me now and tell me-"

"Get out."

His voice barely left his tight throat. Goosebumps jutted over his pale skin. In an instant, he felt the headache return, the exhaustion wanting to steal whatever life he still had.

"You-"

"I said get out!"

Her eyebrows rose at this and she just huffed.

"Well then, fine by me. It was long overdue anyway."

As soon as she walked out the door, he leaned against the wall and fought to catch his breath. A pulsing bubble pressed against him, the silence now drenching him with stories of woe of the past and everything else that hung in between. His shallow breathing was the only thing that kept him company.

The memories continued to pulse, along with the emotions that was strung behind them. Not just about his father but everything that had happened over the past few days, weeks, months and even years.

He slid to the floor and allowed himself to do the one thing he had not allowed himself to do ever since he ran away when he was 16.

He cried.

I want to thank God for giving me the Grace to write this. So, I haven't updated in a while, totally my fault but here it is and hopefully more would be coming out this weekend. I can't be sure of a schedule for now but I hope to be able to get one soon enough, just bear with me 🥲. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, so how is it looking for the siblings? What do you think we will discover from the death of Andrew? Comment and vote if you liked. Thank you ❤️.