“Have mercy on me...”

The disheveled creature gurgled into the carpet, smearing it with a mixture of blood and drool. She was obviously in terrible pain, a gaping wound replacing the lower half of her face and blood seeping from half a dozen other places on her body.

There was only one way her torment was going to end. Kurt, left to his own devices, would only toy with her. Blaine had to finish this. The cold instrument of mercy shook in his hands as he focused on the target.

A jolt shook Blaine awake. He snorted and sat up suddenly, blinking in the sunlight and straining against his seatbelt. “Where are we?”

“About an hour into Virginia,” Kurt said from the driver's seat. “We're getting close to the museum.”

Blaine stretched and yawned. “Contemporary art or old stuff?”

“A mix, I think,” Kurt said, eyes searching for the exit.

They drove up a circular driveway to the museum, housed in a renovated mansion dating back over a hundred years. The historical setting provided a perfect backdrop for a permanent collection of antiques, as well as an intriguing contrast to more modern works. Ivy climbed the brick walls, and leaded glass glowed brightly across the entire front of the building.

They paid the entry fee, joining a crowd of people attending a gala opening for the newest exhibit, a rare touring collection of Edwardian silver. To Kurt's delight, they started with the silver exhibit, then worked their way through the rest of the museum.

Kurt made several detours towards the refreshments, never actually taking anything to eat or drink. Blaine, ever the gentleman, tried to wait patiently for Kurt so that they could eat together, but ultimately the tempting array of snacks won out. “Kurt, aren't you hungry? They have some good stuff.”

“Nah. It's not time yet.” Kurt replied, moving on to an exhibit of paintings inspired by Times Square in New York.

After two hours, Blaine noticed a change in Kurt's expression. Something had caught his interest, but he didn't see what, and Blaine knew better to inquire in the midst of the crowd. All Blaine could see, to his dismay, was that the buffet was finally out of the delicious mini-quiches.

Kurt turned suddenly and headed toward the restrooms. Blaine trotted after him, completely at a loss but certain they weren't going to use the facilities.

Instead of entering the men's room, Kurt ducked through a nearby door that read “staff only.” Blaine pushed open the door behind him, and stepped into the kitchen. Even this room was original to the mansion, with beautiful black-and-white 1940's tile and an authentically cramped sink.

A tall girl with straight, glossy black hair was turning to remove a pan of mini-quiches from the oven, oven mitts on her hands. She puffed her cheeks and blew a stray strand of hair back off of her forehead, sweat gleaming along the ridge of her prominent nose. Her dark brown eyes were large and expressive, made all the more so by a smudged rim of black eyeliner.

Her eyes were focused on her work, balancing the tray carefully to avoid getting burned and nudging the oven door closed. She never saw them coming.

Kurt stepped behind her, quiet as a cat, and pulled an elaborate Edwardian silver candlestick from beneath his jacket, swinging it overhead and straight down onto her skull.

The girl crumpled to the ground, a pallor creeping over her caramel skin as blood gushed from a wound on her head. The blood ran in rivulets down the seams in the tile, dazzlingly bright in the harsh lights of the kitchen, contrasted against the black and the white.

“I didn't even see you take that,” Blaine muttered.

Kurt knelt and reached for a bright flash of color partially hidden under the girl's splayed hair, tugging free a yellow sunflower barette. He frowned as held the trinket up for inspection, noting the red specks marring the cheery color of the plastic petals. He brushed it briskly against the dead girl's crisp apron, then pocketed the flower. Finally, Kurt delivered three more swift blows with the base of the candlestick, denting her skull and ceasing her slow, grating breaths.

Kurt looked up at Blaine, furrowing his brow as he remembered something important. “Did you want some of those mini-quiches? Sorry... but look, some of them didn't touch the ground,” Kurt said, indicating with the dripping candlestick.

* * * * *

“That's disgusting,” the woman spat, nodding her head towards the photograph. Her companion murmured in agreement and moved on to the next photo, remarking about the graffiti, and wasn't New York City so ugly in the 80's? And so very violent.

Washington, D.C. and New York City are both big cities. But New York is big and detailed, humming with life, and there's always more to see the closer you look. New York is dense, an entire world unto itself with people shoved in on top of each other in layers that are revealed when you care enough to see, like focusing a microscope.

D.C. is different. It is big and intimidating, and hums with power. Huge for the sake of being huge, cold, smooth marble towering in the air everywhere you look, obviously beautiful.

Here, a detail of New York hung captured in saturated photographs hanging on a smooth marble wall in D.C. That's what the woman deemed disgusting, and Kurt wasn't impressed by her attitude, not one bit. He liked that particular photo. A little too much, in fact.

After glaring briefly at the woman, he returned to staring at the picture, so long that Blaine made two and a half laps around the room before Kurt finally spoke.

“I don't see what her problem is. It's not even real.”

“It looks pretty real to me,” Blaine said, tracing a finger along the barrel of the gun, hovering a few inches above the print under the watchful eye of the guard at the doorway.

“Not the gun. That's real. I mean the scene. It's staged. They're just goofing. Look at him, he's not really scared,” Kurt replied, pointing at the black man in the foreground, the barrel pressed firmly against his skull, eyes wide.

“Come on, babe, let's keep moving,” Blaine said, tugging Kurt away from the photo and the overly curious guard.

A splash of color caught Blaine's eye as he passed an open doorway, stopping Blaine in his tracks. He turned to the painting, standing for a long while staring at it with a chill spreading across his chest.

“Hmm, Monet. 'The Artist's Garden at Vetheuil.' It's nice.” Kurt glanced at Blaine with puzzled concern. “Are you okay?”

Blaine gulped and wondered to himself if he really was being stalked by his own too-real nightmares, or if it was just his conscious making him notice traces everywhere. “I'm fine, what's next?”

They moved on to an exhibit of George Bellows paintings. “This guy was really good,” Blaine said, admiring the depictions of turn of the century boxers, muscles straining in a play of light and smoke. There were other works showing crowds at the sea or the park, or longshoremen at work, perfect slices of life in the city.

Blaine connected the dots. “New York, again?” he asked Kurt.

“It's beautiful,” Kurt replied. “There's so much detail. An artist could live a hundred lifetimes and never run out of inspiration in a city like that.”

“So it's a coincidence that we keep winding up at exhibits that feature New York City?” Blaine asked.

“Not really,” Kurt sighed after a brief pause. Blaine wrapped his arms around Kurt, nuzzling into his neck and rubbing his back, before they walked together into the next room.

He immediately wanted to turn back. Every wall held images of pain and death. Blaine flinched, his eyes flashing around the room. A plaque on the wall dated the group of paintings to 1918.

Blaine turned to find Kurt once again transfixed, his eyes locked on an enormous painting taking up one entire wall.

A naked young man was wrenched backwards as blood poured from his wrists. A pale hand, rendered in complete, craggy detail, lay limp on the ground. A soldier held a sword, captured in the midst of its arc through the air and the Belgian prisoner.

Blaine took Kurt by the hand and led him back to the Impressionist flowers.

* * * * *

“It's getting kind of late, isn't it?” Blaine said, “Is anything else going to be open?”

“There's just one more place I want to check,” Kurt said, grabbing Blaine's wrist and tugging him forwards faster.

“Oh...” Blaine said once he derived the meaning, rolling his eyes in frustration. Of course they wouldn't be going to museums just to go to museums. “I'm hungry. Can't we get something in my stomach first?”

“Are you sure that's what you want?” Kurt asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Your stomach doesn't always react well to these... situations.”

“Good point,” Blaine frowned, quickening his pace.

They found her on the steps of the Library of Congress, her miniature easel set up on the sidewalk. Under her hands, oil pastels formed the shape of horses, eels, naked breasts of water nymphs. Her vision was far more sexualized, almost obscene, water splashing heavily against smooth, writhing bodies.

“Hi there, I'm Kurt! You must be Rosaline,” Kurt said brightly, extending his hand to the bewildered girl.

“How did you know my name?” Rosaline said, putting down the stick of pigment and wiping her hands before returning the handshake.

“I'm a fellow recipient of the Armentrout Fellowship. Your mentor told me you'd be out drawing, and I thought we should meet. I wanted to talk to you about a possible collaboration.”

“I don't remember seeing your picture in the paper,” she said cautiously.

“The article comes out next week,” Kurt said in obvious and fictitious pride. “I was a late addition. Anyway, is there somewhere we could talk?”

“I suppose,” she said, shutting the lid on the bright purple case that held her oil pastels, “Why don't you walk with me back to my apartment? It isn't far.”

“That's perfect!” Kurt chirped.

* * * * *

“Your designs would be beautiful, if they weren't so base,” Kurt cooed, tugging on the twisted knot of rope in his hands. Rosaline only sputtered, lacking the air to form a proper response. Her eyes bulged slightly, though whether from the insult or the increased pressure of the rope around her neck it was impossible to tell. Kurt made shushing noises, petting her hair and smoothing it back behind her ears.

Rosaline pressed her eyelids shut, then sprang them open again, revealing newly reddened sclera. Almost as an afterthought, her hands flew up to her throat, scrambling ineffectually at the thick rope. The movement started out frantic, but grew slower and weaker as she slowly lost consciousness and slumped in Kurt's arms. Kurt knotted the rope in place, then let the body slide to the ground.

“The river or the dump?” he asked, bending down to reassemble the case of oil pastels where Rosaline had dropped them to the ground.

“You pick,” Blaine shrugged. “Hey, how did you know she'd be out drawing?”

“Facebook,” Kurt said, “Kids these days, no sense of privacy.”

* * * * *

Blaine bounced a bit on his heels as they waited to cross the street, headed to the Museum of American History. Kurt twined their fingers together and grinned at Blaine's obvious excitement.

The light changed, and the boys skipped across the street hand in hand. It was childish, but who cared? They were going to see Kermit! Blaine turned his head to look back at Kurt, giggling, and nearly ran them headlong into a district police officer.

“Woah there, guys, careful,” the officer said. “Hey,” he continued, straightening up. “Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

Blaine's good mood drained out of his body to the ground, so quickly it left his mind reeling. He couldn't breathe, but his chest felt like it might explode. Every instinct told him to flee but his brain overrode the impulse and he looked to Kurt, whose face held an endearing smile that never faltered. “Certainly, officer, how can we help?” Kurt asked.

“Have you seen this girl?” The officer thrust a flier in their faces. Blaine didn't need to see the picture to know who was depicted, but he couldn't help glancing anyway, trying to keep the flash of recognition from showing in his eyes.

“I don't think so, officer, but she does look familiar somehow. Was her picture in the paper?” Kurt asked, glancing quickly at Blaine.

“Actually, yes, she won some kind of scholarship recently.” The officer sighed, putting the picture away.

Kurt shook his head. “She's so young. What happened to her?” he asked, sadly.

“We don't know that anything has happened. She's just missing. Her name is Rosaline Burroughs, and her parents are very worried about her.”

“But don't you guys usually wait until someone has been missing for 48 hours or something before looking? Maybe she just ran away. There would have to be a reason to think something bad happened if you're looking already.”

The officer gave Kurt a strange look, his right hand shifting subtly to his belt. “Well, she's only been missing since yesterday, but there have been an abnormally high number of attacks on kids about your age this summer. You two should be careful.”

“Wait, are you saying that there's some kind of serial killer on the loose? Why hasn't it been on the news?” Kurt's eyes were wide and fearful, innocent and vulnerable

“I'm not saying anything of the sort. But sometimes the police have to keep their theories off of the news at first in order to make it possible to catch the bad guys. So just keep an eye out, especially if you two are into musical theater or whatever.” The officer's eyes flashed to their clothes and the closeness of their stance, and cleared his throat, relaxing a little.

“We will, officer, thank you. I hope you find her.” Kurt led a trembling Blaine away.

“What the hell was that?” Blaine hissed once they were out of range of hearing.

“That was an example of thoroughly unprofessional law enforcement. His hints weren't exactly subtle. He really shouldn't have answered my questions at all.”

“Okay. But, Kurt. Why where you asking questions?” Blaine whispered, scrubbing a hand across his face.

Kurt giggled. “I wanted to know stuff. Don't get so worked up, I was just having a little fun.”

“Your idea of 'a little fun' will be the death of me someday, Kurt.” Blaine scowled.

Kurt's face fell and a sharp look flashed across his eyes. “That's not funny.”

“Neither was what you did. This isn't a game and the police aren't going to play with you. I just can't handle it.” Blaine ducked away briefly, trying to keep his composure.

“You worry too much” Kurt cooed, skipping his fingertips along Blaine's cheek and ear.

“I'm not going to argue about it with you,” Blaine said sternly. “You can't take risks like that. If you got caught...” Blaine ducked his head and pressed his fingers to his eyes, staunching the tears that he could not hold back a second longer.

“I wouldn't let them get to you, you know that, right?” Kurt said, rubbing Blaine's shoulder and craning around in an attempt to look into his eyes.

“You're still missing the point. I'm not worried about myself, I'm worried about you. I'm worried about us. We have to be more careful, Kurt. If either of us gets caught, what was the point of any of it? Please, promise me you won't screw around with law enforcement any more.”

“Okay, sweetheart, I promise. Let's get going to the museum, okay?”

“I'm not in the mood anymore,” Blaine muttered.