Sitting on the chair, Nate quickly glanced to the side to see Zara typing away on her computer.

After last night's revelations, he had excused himself and had gone to his room. There was much to uncover, and he knew the one person who had all of those answers.

So he wasted the night away by sending emails to his current commander, Briggs.

For the time being, he hadn't received a reply back. Nate debated whether to wait, or go into the commander's office and ask the man himself. He knew the latter form was faster, but it made him worry if the Alpha male would even give him the answers he seeked.

He also didn't want Zara to know that he had gone behind her back, especially when she had confided her secret to him. It was doubtful that Briggs knew about the roses, because if he did, Zara wouldn't be on the case.

"Hey, man," a husky voice beside Nate made him turn away from the Omega. Casually, he spun his chair to face one of the Betas on the Aces team.

"Yeah?"

"We're going to go back to our recent vic's crime site. You two want to join us?" The dark-skinned male smiled shyly at him, his mouth curving upwards in a display full of nerves and caution.

Guilt began to form inside of Nate. While he had been getting along with Zara, he failed to notice how his actions have also created a gap between himself and his colleagues. One of the things he'd like when joining the force was the comradeship that came with it.

And now, looking at the Beta, Samuel, made him realize that he wasn't doing his part in this team.

"Sure," Zara's response beat him by a second.

Samuel's chocolate eyes shifted her way, and that basket filled with jittery wariness evaporated into thin air.

"Cool. We'll meet you guys over—"

"No."

The male's smile dropped at his harsh tone. Nate ignored it, knowing this was an opportunity being presented to him. He couldn't miss this. It was an opening he needed, one that could hopefully build bridges with the rest of the guys.

"We'll go with you."

He grabbed his things, motioning to Zara to also get hers. Walking towards the him, he placed his hand on Samuel's shoulder and gave him a smile. The muscle underneath his palm softened, and the male's coffee-colored lips spread, revealing white teeth.

"Okay. Perfect."

The rest of the guys were waiting for them at the lobby. Nate saw a dark frown taking hold of Oliver's face when he saw Samuel chatting with them. Quirking an eyebrow, he leveled his eyes at the other Alpha.

With a grunt, Oliver walked away.

"It's always exciting to see you both fighting."

Zara's voice caused a grin to appear on his mouth. He didn't consider this fighting. It was more of a display of power. Childish, yes, but it had a purpose.

To show the other Alpha that Nate was not afraid of him. And that he's not one to mess with.

"If we were fighting, sweetheart, we wouldn't be standing right now. One of us would've been on the ground. Bloody and broken."

"Hmmm."

"Come on you two," Samuel's voice broke the conversation. They fell into step with the others at the doors.

"Why haven't you found him?!"

Startled, Nate and the rest of the team paused at the entrance. A large crowd dominated the parking lot. Flyers rose up in the air, questions painting each cardboard. There was a wall of fellow policemen creating a fort so people wouldn't get past.

"Tell us why you haven't found my baby's murderer!"

Walking out slowly, they saw the owner of that voice. An older woman was being blocked off by officers. She continued screaming, and her anguished cries created a wave of emotion around the crowd.

"Why?"

Fists clenched, Nate faced Zara, who was solely focused on the woman. A tick flexed beneath the skin of her jaw, and looking down, he saw that she also mirrored his actions.

The crowd rose up in a frenzy, screams and questions resonating in the air.

Glancing back at the Beta woman, Nate saw the picture of their fourth victim pressed against her chest. As if knowing that he was staring at it, she grabbed the crumpled edges and shot her arms up.

She showed them a life that was crudely taken away. One that held too many questions but not enough answers.

Cathy Murphy's cheerful smile was a contradiction to the grim scene currently taking place.

"Come on guys, let's go."

It hurt Nate to say those words, but they needed to continue on with the investigation. There were clues that needed to be found. Cathy and all the other women were counting on them.

As one, the Aces team made their way around the growing mob. Nate could feel the Beta's penetrating eyes on him. Looking to the side, he saw Zara's head swing to the crying mother. Following her movement, he gave the grieving woman his attention as well.

"When will we have answers? What are you hiding from us? Tell me!"

– ☾ –

"How is it that no one put the pieces together when the murders were happening? By my calculations, it's been close to 2 years since the first victim was killed."

Small puffs turned the air milky white before disappearing into small particles of water as Zara let out a sigh in front of him. Although the weather had been nice and warm throughout the morning, late evening still brought forth a bitter chill in the air.

It didn't help that the cabin didn't have any heat to protect them from the weather.

The rustling of papers filled the silence that had descended upon the group at Nate's exclamation. Pulling out a map from her bag, Zara laid it on the plastic covering the mahogany wooden kitchen table.

"I think I know the answer to that."

Everyone moved to the table, surrounding the Omega. He saw Oliver edge closer to her, and in a quick but smooth move, he covered her small form with his. It effectively blocked the other male from going forward.

Nate placed his hand between the Alpha and Zara, slightly shifting his shoulder to create more of a barrier.

"Do you see this?" she asked them, pointing to an area a few miles away from where the second murder had taken place. "That is the border that separates us from the other county. She wasn't in our district, so we had no idea about her."

Grabbing the edge of the wrinkled paper, Nate scanned the area and saw that she was correct; it wasn't the Hays county that surrounded the majority of Allura. Spider legs spread and weaved themselves around the green splotches of ink on the map, creating a cluster of pathways to and from the city.

Zara lifted her gaze and directed it to the group at large. "We didn't find our first victim until a year ago. Gabi was the one who told us she's been dead for a while. If it wasn't for the county lines, we could have found the others and began seeing a pattern."

"When did you guys found out that there were other murdered females with the same M.O.?" Ivan asked as he left to take a spot on the arm rest of the covered sofa.

"Once number five happened."

Nate cursed softly under his breath at her admission. It was bad enough that local law enforcement couldn't find a murderer, but it was even worse when they missed the signs of a serial killer.

"By then," she continued, jerking his attention back to her. "It was too late to warn the public and, thus, stopping the sixth one from happening."

He saw her jam her fingers through her hair in frustration, lifting the inky tresses from their secured place inside their cocoon and leaving them in disarray.

"Sara and Alexis, victim's three and five, were also in another district. It wasn't until their medical examiner leaked that they had found something strange inside of their mouth —"

"The butterfly," Micah's voice cut in, the Alpha male with copper hair and stormy eyes crossed his arms. Everyone turned their attention to his leaning form against the wall.

"Yes," Zara's voice shifted everyone's gaze from the male to her, and Nate felt a swell of pride build and swell inside his chest when all the males in the room awaited for her to continue.

"That's when things started to click into place. We requested the information from the other two counties since we were the first one to find Eliza, our first victim. We got the approval from the Prime Minister to create a team to hopefully solve this otherwise unsolvable case, and that is where you all came into play."

"And now," Nate concluded, the gravity of the situation taking an even sour note with the group, "he's changed the playing field. Zuri's kill is a month early."

"He's escalating," Ivan's voice caused a ripple of discomfort to travel around the cabin. Nate saw some of the detectives shift in their spots as the scent of aggression was casted to the air.

"But the question is: Why? What caused him to kill earlier?"

Frustration rose inside of Nate. He, along with everyone else on the team, couldn't find an answer to Zara's questions.

This whole thing was a clusterfuck. There were still pieces missing to this jarring puzzle. And every day, every case, felt like they weren't advancing at finding those parts.

"What I want to know, is why there's no DNA. Don't you guys find it weird that there's no prints, not even any lingering scent, left on the bodies?" asked Samuel, who stood opposite of him. "How is it that possible?"

This whole case felt like a ticking time bomb, and Nate was terrified of the moment when that bomb finally goes off.