“What do we got?” I questioned, shutting the car door behind me. The summer heat hit me with full force, my shirt collar soaking with perspiration.

Detective Harmon clicked his tongue and nodded his head, “Caitlyn Becker and Paul Stapp, both seventeen. Stapp’s younger sister, Jenny, age fifteen, came home and found the two frozen solid, both with their hearts removed.”

“Where are the parents?”

“Out of town. Called and notified, they’re on a flight back right now,” Harmon paused, his eyes narrowing as if debating his next words. “The mother seemed more furious that Paul had a girl over.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Hysterical…sounds about right.”

I looked at the circus before me, shaking my head, and rolling my eyes out of Harmon’s point of view. Cops and forensics teams walked around like headless chickens. News teams circled the crime scene like hungry sharks with no shroud of remorse. Neighbors in their sleeping attire stood from behind the yellow tape, taking pictures and recording videos for their social media feeds. A man in his early twenties, wearing a wifebeater and gym shorts was selling the crime scene better than all the newscasters combined.

“Ridiculous,” I muttered from under my breath. “We would live in a world where Freaks would become serial killers.”

“Superheroes,” Harmon corrected in an almost mousy fashion. “Or, Supes…”

I held out a hand to prevent Harmon from saying anything else to further embarrass himself, “Call them what you want, they’ll always be Freaks to me.”

Harmon’s eyes widened and he let out a sharp exhale. “You seem to be in a mood today.”

I let out a sigh and shook my head, “I’m sorry Harmon, didn’t mean to lash out. It’s my weekend with Annie, she just got to my apartment, and I gotta spend it here at Sub-Zero’s crime scene.”

“He prefers to be called The Cold-Hearted Killer…apparently.”

I scoffed and made my way towards the yellow tape, doing my best to be discreet and avoid the attention of the bystanders or the newscasters. There was so much commotion going on that I could barely get my thoughts in order. I ducked under the yellow tape and entered the front yard of the Stapp residence, doing my best to navigate through the sea of people towards the front door.

I stepped into the house and felt a noticeable chill, it shot through my veins like an injection. The Stapp house felt more like a meat locker than a suburban home. I could see my breath as I exhaled, it elegantly danced in front of me before disappearing with the time. I immediately regretted not bringing a jacket of some kind.

“Seriously, how the hell are we supposed to deal with something like this?” I said through the chattering of my teeth.

Harmon shrugged his shoulders, rubbing his biceps for warmth. “As best we can?”

“Where are they?”

Harmon pointed and led the way toward the living room. The carpet was frozen solid, walking over it sounded as though we were walking through snow. We entered the living room and my jaw dropped unintentionally. The entire living room was covered in ice, icicles hung from the ceiling, and mounds of ice were piled up in the corners, both at ground level and at the ceiling. The furniture and walls were covered by a thick sheet of ice, the family photos that hung on the walls were distorted by a sheet of frozen glass. The interior lights of the house did nothing to combat the blue hue of frost. It was ninety-five degrees outside, but the living room felt like the coldest winter on an entirely different continent.

Paul Stapp and Caitlyn Becker sat on the couch, arm’s wrapped around one another. The final, horrifying moments of their lives, frozen within their youthful faces, forming the most chilling picture. Paul’s eyes are shut, his jaw clenched tight, and the veins along his neck are visible, even under the ice. Caitlyn’s eyes are wide, her mouth opened, with her tongue raised and frozen in place. I can practically hear her final scream. Icicles clung to their noses and earlobes, their eyelashes replaced with tiny blades of ice. There’s a hole in each of their chests from where he removed their hearts, frozen blood circles their wounds, looking like the red syrup for a snow cone.

The sight chilled me to my very core, and it had nothing to do with the living room being frozen. Paul and Caitlyn couldn’t have been older than Annie, there was a very good chance she knew them. This was the third striking of “The Cold-Hearted Killer,” and my brain still struggled with making sense of how he did what he did. He’d been striking in succession over the past two weeks, proper autopsies hadn’t been performed on the victims because they were still thawing.

We weren’t trained for something like this.

I exhaled again, my breath breaking apart on Paul’s forehead. “Just like last time. He freezes them, then immediately removes their heart.”

“While they’re still…somewhat alive,” Harmon added.

A shiver ran down my spine and I couldn’t tell if it was from Harmon’s words or the living room. I looked at them, and noticed a bracelet on each of their left wrists, “What do we have here?”

“Thought the same thing. Too bad the ice blur’s the words to the point where it’s illegible.”

I shook my head with a tremble, “Run their credit cards. Let’s go interview the sister, and fetch a coat before we freeze to death. Where is she?”

“Backyard…not entirely sure how useful she’ll be.”

------------------------

I watched amongst the frazzled crowd in silence. Listening to the questions sprinkled throughout, relishing the sense of worry in the tones of their voices. One commented on how they were so young and innocent. Another remarked on how Paul was a “good kid” and his girlfriend seemed like a “great girl”. A man behind me spoke of the emotional toll this would take on his parents.

They were foolish, speaking with an empty mind, a lack of any real heart. They didn’t know the first thing about Paul Stapp or Caitlyn Becker. They didn’t know of the teasing and the ridiculing. The insufferable bullying they administered to countless students. The pain that they’d caused me.

They got what they deserved, and I couldn’t feel more satisfied, more enthralled. Even though it was well past midnight, my night was just beginning. My most prized possession had become free…unwatched, unattended.

Mine.

All. Mine.

I watched as Detective Ambrose discussed the scene with his partner. The frustration and anger, are clear in his mannerisms. Detective Harmon did his best to soothe the fires that rippled within his partner. I watched as they entered the Stapp residence, and exhaled, feeling the icy cool brush past my lips.

I slipped away unnoticed. The crowd was far too concerned with their asinine remarks and questions, too invested in what they were posting on their social media feeds. Oblivious to the fact that The Cold-Hearted Killer had been standing amongst them, observing his crime with pure admiration. I was in my car and gone within seconds. The glorious benefits of being, plain and forgettable.

Ambrose’s apartment wasn’t far. A ten-minute drive with traffic but far less within the infant hours of the day. I stood at his front door, placing my palm on the doorknob and freezing it to the point where it was useless. I tapped it with a gentle finger, and it fell from its socket and onto the floor within his apartment.

I pushed the door open to the apartment of a disgruntled, depressed, and broken man in his late forties. I could smell the scent of trash not taken out, hear the drip of a neglected kitchen faucet, a rogue fly buzzed around in the silence. The confirmation that the “prestigious” Annie Ambrose spent her weekends here was surprising and somewhat saddening. She’d tried so hard to label herself as a girl of “class” and “elegance.”

To see the status of her father’s apartment was enigmatic.

Annie stumbled out of her father’s guest room, wearing a white shirt that was a size too small and gym shorts that concealed next to nothing. Rubbing her eyes clear of sleep, she spoke in a voice thick with grogginess. I found it audacious that she had to dress this provocative during her sleep, but that was Annie Ambrose…the one and only.

“Dad, what’s with the noise, is everything…”

And then she saw me through the darkness, standing in the hollowness of her Dad’s pathetic living quarters. There was just the right amount of light shining through the living room blinds, enough for me to see the panic in her eyes. The buzzing of the fly and the dripping of the sink did nothing to conceal the shutter in her breath.

“Tyler!? What are you doing here?!?!?”

I smiled. I was never good with confrontation or social situations. But I knew I was good at scaring people, and I was even better at killing them. I felt no remorse as she began to tremble and shake, as the temperature of the apartment neared the single digits. Her eyes darted from the living room to the kitchen, as blue mist filled the air, as icicles formed along the ceiling and the furniture.

Every boy lusted for the one and only Annie Ambrose, myself included. Her beautiful smile, her perfect physique. The way she lured you in with her undeniable charm, only to destroy you with a couple of words, and a few actions. Her actions provided a chill of devastation that mine couldn’t replicate, a mental chill, one that wore you down from the inside.

She made a break for the front door like an idiot, with the wave of my hand I sent the right amount of cool air in her direction to send her spiraling through the air and back into the apartment. She landed with a thud in the hallway and slid into the wall.

“Please,” She begged through a shiver. “Tyler, I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings…”

She got to her feet on trembling legs, her once perfect tan skin gaining a hue of arctic blue. She backed into the wall, eyes darting around the apartment for an escape. She considered the window, but that was a three-story fall. She held out her hands and I saw the bracelet, the same one on my wrist, the same one on Paul and Caitlyn’s. The bracelets that got us into the bowling alley, where all three of them hammered the final nail into their respective coffins.

“I’ll take the video down…please Tyler,” She paused, her eyes blinking in hysterics as she struggled to find the next words. “It was Paul and Caitlyn’s idea…please Tyler, I didn’t.”

Enough.

Her scream was cut short, the neighbors wouldn’t stir in their sleep. Annie Ambrose was frozen solid within seconds. Her back arched, a slight bend to her knees, her arms straight to her sides, her head thrown back and her mouth open as though she were howling at the moon. She still looked beautiful, concealed by ice.

It was low, oh so low, but I could hear the trailing of her scream from under the ice. I could see the twitch of her eyeballs as they struggled for movement. There was no need to let her struggle, no need to let my work of art be incomplete. I punched through the glass of ice around her chest and removed her beating heart.

The Ice-cold heart of Annie Ambrose…the one and only.