They found the body hanging from a construction crane at sunrise.
Naked.
Disemboweled.
A red spiral carved into the chest.
It wasn't their work.
That was the first problem.
Julian stood beneath the dangling corpse, arms folded, black coat catching the wind like wings.
Carmen lit a cigarette, staring up at the body with quiet rage.
"Sloppy cut," she muttered.
Julian nodded. "Too deep on the curve. Ruined the ribs."
Carmen exhaled smoke. "He's trying to be clever."
"He's trying to be us."
It was bound to happen.
They'd been too visible lately—too loud. The last three kills had made headlines. Carmen had even left behind a personal mark—a camera lens in the victim's mouth, a reference no one would get but Julian.
Apparently someone else got it, too.
But they got it wrong.
Back at their loft, Julian laid the photos out on the floor.
The scene had been staged.
Too clean. Too desperate.
The copycat had tried to mimic their signature postmortem cuts—surgical, artistic, asymmetrical—but it lacked restraint.
"Amateur," Julian muttered.
Carmen knelt beside the pictures, eyes narrowing.
"No," she said. "Not an amateur. Devoted."
She tapped a detail in one photo.
A note.
Folded. Tucked between the victim's toes.
Julian read it aloud.
"We see you. Teach us."
It wasn't a threat.
It was a request.
An audition.
Julian leaned back on his hands. "Have you ever trained a dog?"
"Yes."
"Ever train one to kill?"
She smiled faintly. "No. But I've put down a few."
By nightfall, they had a plan.
They didn't ignore the copycat.
They invited them.
Julian left a signature on the rooftop of a hotel—blood arranged in the shape of a question mark. A date scrawled below. A time. A location.
Carmen called it bait.
Julian called it a test.
They waited in an abandoned theater.
No lights.
Just a single chair, center stage, spotlight rigged from above.
Carmen sat in the audience.
Julian waited behind the curtain.
And just past midnight…
The door creaked open.
A man entered.
Young. Nervous. Dressed to impress in slacks and a black turtleneck, as if murder demanded fashion sense.
He stepped into the light.
Julian appeared behind him.
Smiling.
Knife in hand.
The boy froze.
"You came," Julian whispered.
"I—I just wanted to learn."
Carmen's voice cut through the dark like a razor.
"Then watch closely."
The death was intimate.
Not clean.
Not fast.
Julian made it a lesson.
Carmen narrated.
By the end, the copycat was more art than anatomy.
They left his body in an alley, carefully arranged—face carved open, hands sewn to his own thighs.
Let the police wonder what it meant.
Let the world know—
They weren't just killers.
They were the standard.