This has to be a joke.

"It's been a long five years, but recently, we've gotten closer to catching him than ever before. We can't give a timeframe for when we hope to have him by, but rest assured, we will get the Bloody Valentine off the streets as soon as possible."

Dean shakes his head, exiting out of the public library's browser with a frown. Those little fucking liars. The FBI are nowhere near catching him. By the time they pick up on one of his crime scenes, he's already two states over. They don't have his name, face, or pattern, and they're gonna claim they're closer than ever? Fucking bullshit.

He leaves the computer behind without a second thought. If Michael Novak, the head of the FBI, has anything else to say, it'll show up front page in every newspaper across the country. He can buy a copy when he stumbles across one — and he better stumble across one. God knows he has a plan for it. Those sons of bitches better think twice before telling the world that the Bloody Valentine's reign is coming to an end, because it's been five years since his first murder and he's just getting started.

~~

Sure enough, Dean finds it in the paper the next morning, as he stopped at a local gas station for a cheap breakfast pie. He plops a copy on the counter without hesitation, muttering a quiet, "This, too, please."

It's a fair inexpensive purchase. The money he stole from his last kill was more than enough to pay for it, plus the bus fair he'll need to get out of this town before the feds show up.

Although if the article from his paper is exclusive to this city's paper, maybe he should rethink that.

He'll take the easy way out. One more kill, just to make a statement, then he'll ditch town. Of course, that won't be until he leaves the feds a nice little letter written in his favorite ink — the victim's blood. He's sure it'll mess with their tiny brains, seeing him kill twice in one town, but they really forced his hand on this one. There are very few things he considers unforgivable, and defamation is one of them.

So that's what he does. He hits up a grocery store, grabbing a single pie just so he doesn't seem out of place, then takes the city bus to the first stop it brings him to. The only other people to get off there are an old couple, each holding a single bag for their walk home.

This is just too fucking easy.

He stalks them at a distance, staying almost out of their site until he sees them tuck themselves safely into their little home in a crowded neighborhood. What better way to attract some attention to his message then murdering an old couple on a busy street?

So that's what he does.

Most people don't understand it. They hear someone killed an old lady, they see a monster. They don't understand that it's the least damage he could do. Two retired citizens living off government money with only a decade left to live? How is that worse than killing a 30-something-year-old in their prime, as a functioning member of society?

But people hate when he kills old people, almost as much as they do when he kills kids, so he does it anyway. And understanding that this is the most merciful age group to kill doesn't make their screams and pleas any less pleasant.

He stabs the man in the chin and up through the skull. The woman, he has more important plans for, so he slices her stomach open instead.

Dean tapes the newspaper clippings to the wall, carefully ripped out so as not to cut off anything important. He dips a finger in the dead woman's blood and crosses a red line through the worst line in the article — "We've gotten closer to catching him than ever before." He knows that will catch their eye.

He dips the toothpick in the blood, which he knows he'll have to do a few times as he writes, "Aw, how cute. You want people to think you actually know how to do your job." He dips a finger in the blood for his signature — a bloody heart, followed by the letters "B. V." The Bloody Valentine strikes again.

But then he hears the sirens, and begins to think that maybe they weren't as wrong as he thought.

He sprints to the front door, peeking through a window so discreetly, he's almost positive no one can see him. But when he sees five cop cars pulling up behind a sweet black ride, he knows he needs to go. The last thing he sees before jumping out a back window is the man in the tan trench coat slamming the front door open and sprinting to the house.

Well, shit.