"Judged by Lead" Season One

Chapter 10: Trigger Point

Chapter 10: Trigger Point

The fragile hope that Tristan had kindled within me flickered like a candle in a drafty room, offering a brief respite from the encroaching darkness. His acceptance, his unwavering belief in my capacity for good, had chipped away at the thick walls I had built around my heart, allowing a sliver of light to penetrate the abyss.

For the first time in years, I dared to dream of a life beyond the shadows, a life where I could shed the mantle of the Redeemer and embrace the normalcy I had always craved.

Tristan represented a chance at redemption, a path towards healing the wounds that had festered for so long.But even as I basked in the warmth of his love, the shadows of my past loomed large, threatening to extinguish the fragile flame of hope.

The Dollmaker's presence was a constant reminder of the darkness that dwelled within me, a reflection of the monster I could so easily become.

The investigation had reached an impasse, with no new leads or clues to guide us. The Dollmaker seemed to have vanished into thin air, leaving behind only the chilling echoes of their gruesome artistry.

The silence was unnerving, a pregnant pause before the inevitable storm.It was during this period of forced inactivity that the nightmares returned with a vengeance. Each night, I was plunged into the abyss of my childhood trauma, reliving the horrific moment when my mother and sister were brutally slain before my eyes.

Their screams echoed in my ears, their blood staining my hands, a crimson stain that no amount of scrubbing could ever erase.The nightmares bled into my waking hours, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. I found myself questioning my own sanity, wondering if I was losing my grip on the carefully constructed façade that separated Hayler Lewis, the dedicated police sergeant, from the Redeemer, the judge, jury, and executioner.

The pressure mounted with each passing day, threatening to crush me under its immense weight. The weight of my secrets, the weight of my guilt, the weight of the lives I had taken – it all bore down on me, suffocating me, drowning me in a sea of despair.And then, it happened.The call came in on a dreary Tuesday morning, the monotonous voice of the dispatcher cutting through the fog of my exhaustion.

A body had been discovered in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city, the scene bearing all the hallmarks of the Dollmaker's handiwork.

My heart sank as I listened to the details, a sickening feeling of dread washing over me. This was it. This was the moment I had both feared and anticipated, the moment when the Dollmaker would finally reveal their true intentions, their ultimate endgame.As I arrived at the scene, the familiar stench of death and decay assaulted my senses, triggering a wave of nausea.

The warehouse was a desolate shell, its walls adorned with graffiti and its floors littered with debris. In the center of the room, bathed in the harsh glare of the portable floodlights, lay the victim.It was a woman, her body contorted into a grotesque pose, her limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Her face was frozen in a mask of terror, her eyes wide with the silent scream of her final moments.

But it wasn't the brutality of the scene that sent shivers down my spine; it was the way the body had been staged, the meticulous attention to detail that mirrored the murders I had committed as the Redeemer.

The woman's hands were bound behind her back, her wrists slashed, the blood dripping onto the concrete floor in a macabre pattern. A single white rose lay upon her chest, its delicate petals stained crimson. It was a signature, a calling card, a direct message from the Dollmaker to me.

As I knelt beside the body, my gloved fingers tracing the familiar pattern of the bloodstains, a wave of dizziness washed over me. The warehouse walls seemed to melt away, replaced by the blood-soaked walls of my childhood home. The victim's face morphed into the faces of my mother and sister, their terrified eyes staring back at me, accusing me.