Don't Run

Meet Cute

So far everything she has done has been to naught. There was no new information that she had found from talking to Fairy's BFF - Mahi and she couldn't see why anyone might want her dead. She was harmless.

And that was the reason that Hayley found herself sneaking through the woods, trying to find the spot where she was killed. Hayley figured she'd just have to find the place with a yellow tape around it. And she hoped that there was no one guarding it. There wasn't anyone when she was driving up here. And just in case she had taken the long way around. Parking a little further, near a small stationary shop, in the middle of nowhere. Going into the forest first and then making her way towards the crime scene. Fingers crossed.

She had never had much trouble walking through the woods. In fact she enjoyed it. Better than the confining air of any concrete structure. She could see the yellow crime scene tape. She paused to make sure there wasn't anyone else there. Confirming the place to be empty, she headed in. Trying to match the position of the dried blood and the trees to figure out the direction of the shot and hence the position of the shooter. The police report said that the distance of the shot was around 5 - 7 feet. Hayley stepped away from the tape, counting from two.

Two.

Three.

Four.

With each step she could imagined herself slipping into the skin of the killer. Calm. Unpaced. She looked around the ground, the police didn't find anything, not even bullet shells, the killer cleaned up after themselves. She imagined herself aiming the gun, six consequent shots fired within seconds. Farah clutches her stomach and collapses on the ground, reduced to nothing more than meat. Hayley steps forward now, the gun by her side, pulling out her phone, clicking the photos, moving around trying to find the right angles. The flash making her look like a ghost. She ducks under the tape, standing where Farah would have stood as she took her last step. There is nothing there. No indentations, scrufs or marks. Clean. The police didn't find anything else either.

Hayley felt lightheaded like she had just woken up from a dream. She crotched, sitting on her toes. The ground had absorbed the blood making it look maroon. Hayley reaches out to touch, unable to resist. This was someone else's blood. Someone who was murdered. This should be horrifying. She should be horrified. That was the appropriate response. But she wasn't. Instead she was drawn in by the color of it. The image in the photos next to her materialized in her head, an inappropriate thought crossed her mind. And she shoved it away but not before taking a little peak.

Her heart almost stopped at the sound of crusty leaves being broken under a boot. Pulled back to reality she shot up.

"Who's there?" She asked like a dumb horror movie character. She straitened her back, hoping it wasn't the police.

More leaves crunched as a head popped out of a tree.

"Hi" he said.

He stepped out of the tree's shadow and promptly fell face forward on the ground. Hayley rolled her eyes and raced to help him up. However he was already on his feet. He smiled at her, the corners of his lips touched his eyes. He was freaking huge. Not just super tall but also fairly well built making him seem bigger than he actually was.

"Hi" he waved his hand once, a leaf stuck to his shoulder length wavy hair. Hayley thought she knew the guy, she was sure she had seen him somewhere. However no record of a name popped into her head.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, turning away the photos in her hand.

"You are not the only one fascinated by murder, Nayak"