Chapter 1: The Call That Drags Him Home
The air in the motel room tasted like failure and stale coffee. A thin film of grit coated every surface, and the floral wallpaper peeled away from the corner in a slow, defeated curl. Outside the grimy window, a neon sign buzzed and sputtered, painting the shabby space in a rhythmic wash of crimson. MOTEL. The ‘E’ flickered like a dying heartbeat.
Jason Thorne sat on the edge of the stained mattress, his palms pressed flat against his thighs. The springs groaned. In his hands, a small, cold weight. He didn’t need to look; he knew every scratch, every dulled edge by feel.His FBI badge. He ran a thumb over the raised lettering, a ghost of a sensation flickering behind his eyes—not memory, but the echo of one. The sharp, copper-and-ozone scent of a Chicago alley. The wrongness that had pressed against his skull like a physical weight that night. The sound a rib cage makes when it gives way.
That’s what the phone call was like. A sharp, wet crack in the quiet of the motel room.
Jason didn’t move. The receiver sat on the nightstand, its cord coiled like a sleeping snake. The neon glow outside pulsed, casting jagged shadows across the peeling wallpaper. He knew who it was before he picked it up. Some instincts never rust.
He exhaled through his nose, slow and deliberate, then reached for the phone.
“You’re hard to find,” said the voice on the other end. Female. Familiar. Not a name he’d forgotten, but one he hadn’t let himself think about in years.
Jason leaned back, the springs protesting under his weight.
"Serpontia, heard your the new headmaster at nevermore," Jason states looking out the window at the flickering neon sign. "So, what do you want, and why now?"
The line was quiet for a moment, the kind of silence that felt like a trap. Then, "You always were good at math, Thorne. You know the odds of me calling just to catch up."
Jason smirked, rubbing his thumb over the FBI badge in his hand. "Yeah. And I know you didn’t climb the ladder just to play games."
A dry chuckle, the kind that didn’t reach her eyes. "Fair. But this isn’t a game. It’s a mess. And you’re the only one who can clean it up."
The badge felt heavier now.
"Fine, what happened," Jason asked , his voice low, the words scraping against the inside of his throat. He didn't need to ask who "it" was. He knew. The Bureau had a way of crawling back into your life like a bad debt.
Serpontia exhaled, the sound crackling through the phone line. "You remember the Blackthorn case?"
Jason’s fingers tightened around the badge. "I remember the bodies. I remember the way the walls smelled like bleach and something worse.
The way the blood had dried in jagged patterns on the floor, like some kind of broken art. The way the detective in charge kept calling it a "ritual," even though none of us believed in that shit.
I remember the way you looked at me when I told you I was leaving the Bureau. Like I’d just kicked a puppy.
The neon sign outside the motel window flickered again, casting a sickly red glow across the peeling wallpaper. Jason leaned back against the headboard, the springs groaning under his weight. The badge was still in his hand, cold and heavy against his skin.
"Blackthorn’s back," Serpontia said, her voice low and steady.
"Or at least, something that looks like him. Three bodies in two weeks. Same MO. Same… *signatures.*"
Jason’s fingers tightened around the phone. The motel room felt suddenly smaller, the stale air pressing in. "That’s impossible. Blackthorn’s dead. I watched them bury him."
"Tell that to the coroner’s reports," Serpontia said. "Or the families of the latest victims. You know how this works, Thorne. The Bureau needs a clean sweep. Someone who knows the case inside out."
Jason exhaled through his nose. "You mean someone who is outside of the bureau and has ties to Nevermore, just tell me one thing Wednesday Adams involved in this, she poking around the case," Jason asked, his voice low and controlled. He knew the answer before she spoke.
Serpontia hesitated, just a fraction of a second too long. "She’s… connected. Indirectly. But that’s not why I’m calling. This isn’t about her."
Jason’s jaw tightened. The neon sign outside pulsed, casting a crimson glow over the motel room’s peeling wallpaper. He could almost see the ghosts in the pattern—shadows of past cases, past mistakes.
"Then why are you calling?" he asked, though he already knew. The Bureau didn’t make calls like this unless they were desperate. "Last time you talked to me you made it clear you never wanted to see me again," he stated , his voice low, almost conversational.
Serpontia’s sigh was sharp, impatient. "And yet here we are. You’re the only one who knows Blackthorn’s patterns. The only one who can spot the differences."
Jason’s thumb traced the edge of the badge again. "You mean the only one who can cover up the mess when you realize it’s not him."
The line went quiet. The neon sign outside flickered, casting jagged shadows across the room. Jason could almost hear Serpontia’s mind working, calculating. "I’m not asking you to lie, Thorne. I’m asking you to look. If it’s not him, we’ll find out. It's for the benefit of all outcasts, you believed that yourself once," she says as she hangs the phone up.
Jason stared at the receiver in his hand, the dial tone buzzing like a dying insect. The neon sign outside pulsed again—*MOTEL*—as if the universe itself were mocking him.
He set the phone down carefully, like it might detonate. The badge in his other hand felt heavier now, as if the weight of the past had suddenly doubled. He exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled, then stood up. The mattress springs groaned in protest.
Packing his bags up he felt the weight of the badge in his pocket, a silent reminder of the life he had tried to leave behind. The motel room was a tomb of half-forgotten decisions, and he was done being buried alive. Jason grabbed his leather jacket from the back of the chair and shrugged it on, the familiar weight settling against his shoulders like an old friend.
Outside, the night air was cool and damp, carrying the faint scent of rain and exhaust. The neon sign buzzed overhead, casting its sickly glow over the cracked pavement. Jason paused for a moment, taking in the sight of the motel—a place that had become a temporary home for the lost and the forgotten. He wasn’t one of them anymore. Not tonight.
Not after this.
Jason Thorne stepped out into the neon-lit parking lot, the gravel crunching under his boots like shattered glass. The air smelled like rain and cheap gasoline, the kind of scent that clung to the back of your throat. He exhaled sharply, watching his breath curl into the cold night.
The motel sign flickered above him—*MOTEL*—the E blinking in and out like a dying pulse. He couldn’t shake the feeling that it was mocking him.
He had left the Bureau for a reason. Left the blood, the lies, the way the walls in interrogation rooms always seemed to close in just a little too tight.
But every time he thinks he is done, more blood is always in his path.