Do you know that feeling when time stands still? And I don't mean the kind of time standing still like, 'Oh my God, that last physics class was so boring, I swear to you time stood still' kind. I also don't mean the cheesy 'time stands still with him/her' kind.

Actually, I'm talking about the kind where you're in an incredibly dangerous situation and, thanks to what feels like a hundred tons of adrenaline, suddenly you see everything around you happening in slow motion. Everything sharp and slowly and deliberately, and you wonder why nobody moves any faster to prevent something awefull from happening.

The blood, which in reality had almost reached the speed of light in my vains, pulsated slowly and sluggishly for the moment, and the horrors around my burned themselves into my brain for eternity.

Yet, even though it felt like I had all the time in the world, I couldn't do anything.

I saw the elevator door open out of the corner of my eyes. The elevator mirror, which was mounted opposite the door, gave me a view of a black leather jacket over a well-defined chest with an almost laughably low-cut tank top in the same color. The glass was stained with blood and dirt from the previous fight, so I couldn't see the face.

He is handsome, shot through my mind completely absurdly, and I had to suppress a hysterical giggle with all my might. Somehow I never pictured a psychotic serial killer to be handsome, but I had been biased as it seems. Stupid me. Another giggled threatened to burst forth. I was absolutely loosing it. Now was not the time to go into shock.

The man looked down at Tom's body. One of his feet was stuck in the door, preventing it from closing. He kicked it, and Tom's shoe fell off. Anger boiled up in me as I suppressed the sudden urge to him scold him , but apparently I was still intelligent enough to hold back.

"You've caused me quite a bit of trouble!"

The voice, which must have belonged to 'Eric' from the previous conversation, cut through the air sharper than a knife.

I was about to throw myself on the floor and beg for my life when I realized he wasn't talking to me, but to the corpse.

"Not sure if it was worth the effort..."

He absentmindedly ran his hand through his, as far as I could tell from here, shoulder-length hair.

Then he cursed... In... Swedish?

"Motherfucker, is that blood IN MY HAIR!"

A few more curses followed, which were so imaginative that I couldn't even begin to understand what was meant, before he hissed and kicked the door...

...which gave way.

The door gave way?

I could practically feel my eyes widening so much that they could have fallen out of my head. What kind of pumped-up lunatic had I encountered here? He must have been on drugs!

And worse, he was now definitively on his way into the elevator.

I held my breath and tried to make myself as small as possible. Not move. Make myself invisible. Eric's broad back loomed in front of me as he unexpectedly bent down and grabbed Tom, lifting him as if he weighed no more than a child. His head rolled lifelessly backward, and his organs seemed to want to leave his body, which elicited a damn gasp from me.

The man instantly spun around, spraying blood and other things that were leaving Tom's body and that I didn't want to think about, in the elevator.

His eyes were as bright blue as a cloudless day in the Caribbean. And he focused on me. Squinting those beautiful eyes and staring at me. Staring... through me. He took a deep breath. No... He sniffed the air. Then, completely unexpectedly, he grinned.

"Interesting," he murmured softly, readjusting Tom's body on his shoulder. I still hadn't dared to breathe again. I doubted I knew how it worked. All my thoughts were focused on the scene before me.

"Maybe it was worth it after all..."

Apparently completely uninterested in my presence, Eric turned around and was about to leave the elevator. A silent tear ran down my cheek, a sob rose in my throat. My counterpart tilted his head and sniffed again before he turned around again and scanned the elevator.

"Really interesting."

He patted Tom's lifeless back as if they were having a familiar conversation between friends.

"Maybe you were not so stupid after all. Careless! But not stupid..."

He grabbed Tom's jaw and opened it, as if he were a puppet.

"I should have pulled you out of the noose while I still had the chance!" he said, using Tom as a ventriloquist's dummy. Blood flowed from Tom's moving mouth and dripped onto the man's low-cut top.

"Dude, that was fresh!" He sighed. "I guess I'll have to change again!"

He wiped away a stray blood trail running from one of Tom's wounds over his skin before he ran his fingers to his lips and LICKED them. I thought I was going to throw up.

And then, within the blink of an eye, he was gone.

It took what felt like an eternity, long after I heard the door slam shut, for me to dare to move again. To even breathe. It wasn't working properly either. Shaking, I took a breath, but it seemed to reach my brain only partially. Panicked, I took a second one. And a third. Overdoing it. Hyperventilating.

I wanted to leave the elevator as quickly as possible, but my body rebelled, and I fell forward. Thankfully, I had hit a corner of the elevator that hadn't been decorated with the innards of my first great love, but I still wanted nothing more than to leave my personal hell.

But my body contradicted me. My vision blurred, and I couldn't stop panicking and breathing harder and harder, trying to stay conscious. My arms, on which I had previously propped myself up with such difficulty, slipped away, and I fell on my face.

My last thought before passing out was, 'Oh please, Lord, let me sink into the ground, so that the others can't find me.' Then all the lights went out.

When I came to again, it took a frighteningly long moment for me to realize where I was. The light that woke me up wasn't the first ray of sun in my bedroom. It was too bright. Too... artificial.

I blinked against the neon light until my eyes were able to refocus. A bright LED bulb without a lampshade hung over my head and flickered. I sat up laboriously and groaned.

My head was pounding, and my stomach growled as if I hadn't eaten in days or had partied hard the night before. I tried to remember where I was or how I had gotten here, but my memory was blurry. There had been a taxi... Maybe I had gone drinking last night and overdone it a bit? Incoherent images whirled through my head. I held my aching head and sat up completely. My surroundings were less unfamiliar than they should have been.

I was in a police station.

Again.

In a holding cell or something similar.

Also not the first time.

My theory of a night of drinking seemed to solidify more and more, and I stood up to look for a glass of water.

It was only now that I realized I wasn't wearing my clothes. That I wasn't wearing any clothes that seemed out like mine. That I wore cozy grey sweatpants and an equally grey shirt with NYPD Training Academy printed across my chest actually.

What the fuck?

This wasn't the standard procedure for an arrest. Even if I had puked my guts out, which I highly doubted since I NEVER got sick from alcohol, they would have left me lying in my own mess. Plus, I'd probably woken up in a hospital on a drip, not here.

God, my head was killing me. I couldn't even think straight anymore. Time for answers. And hopefully painkillers.

"Hello?"

My voice sounded rough and hoarse in the emptiness of the room as it echoed off the walls.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" I approached the door and looked out through a small plastic window. Indeed, there was a maybe 30-year-old police officer in uniform standing outside my window, responding to my knocking. He was about 6 feet tall, had olive skin, and bright green eyes. His expression was friendly, albeit somewhat uncertain as he opened the door. He raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"Oh, you're awake again! I'll let the detectives know right away."

I furrowed my brow.

"Um, yeah. Excuse me, could I possibly get a glass of water and maybe an advil? My head is killing me."

Actually, that didn't seem far-fetched at all. Flashes of light danced through my field of vision. I remembered reading that light flashes were a form or even a harbinger of a migraine. Or maybe a stroke?

"I don't think I'm authorized to give you drugs, Miss!" the police officer replied politely, smoothing his uniform nervously before looking at me apologetically. His voice seemed to have a slight Southern accent. I liked him. He had been nicer than any of the other cops I had encountered in New York so far.

I sighed heavily and nodded understandingly. If I had an allergic reaction, the precinct would be liable.

"I understand. Could you then perhaps let them know that I'm back on my feet and they can prepare my release papers?" I asked as non-bitingly as possible under these raging headaches.

The police officer frowned."Release papers?"

God, he must still be very new to his job. "So I can get out of the detox cell?" I explained as simply as possible.

"You're not here for alcohol influence!"

Now it was my turn to furrow my brow. "I'm not?"

The man looked at me incredulously. "Are you trying to say you don't know why you're here?"

A bad feeling crept over me, and paralyzing fear settled in my stomach. Images flashed before my eyes again, but I didn't want to look at them. I didn't want to remember. But my interlocutor wouldn't stop talking.

"You're here because you've been arrested for the murder of Thomas MacKenzie!"