It had rained the day before. The concrete around the old petrol station still smelled of wet dust, metal, and oil. Nature was trying to wash away what had been done there—but some stains refuse to leave.
The petrol station stood forgotten on the outskirts of Rosewood. Rusted signs. Cracked windows. A flickering streetlight overhead that buzzed like a dying wasp. No fuel pumps. No electricity. No cameras inside.
But it had tiles. White ceramic ones. Once polished to perfection. Now crusted over with mold, rat droppings, and fresh blood.
The body was found early morning, by a delivery boy cutting through to reach the highway.
Aryan had left him propped against the station's vending machine—like a puppet with cut strings. Head tilted to one side, one eye swollen shut. Lips dry and purple.
Rohan Bhatia.
Age: 17, A cricket player. Loud. Overconfident. Known for bragging about parties and girls. Not a predator by any means—but careless. Aryan remembered seeing him brush against Aanya's shoulder in the hallway once. A comment about her perfume. A smirk.
It hadn't even registered for her.
But Aryan had memorized it.
He had stalked Rohan for two weeks. Followed him to his tuition center. Observed what time he left practice. Found out he liked to sneak cigarettes behind the playground.
It had taken planning. Patience.
He lured him with a lie—a borrowed voice note from a female friend, manipulated with an audio editor, asking to meet late at the station. Rohan had gone, thinking it was harmless. Thinking it would end in a kiss or a laugh.
He never left.
The scene was brutal. Aryan had arrived early, changed into his spare school uniform—a blazer that fit too tightly and polished shoes that squeaked. He wore gloves. Brought zip ties. A scalpel. Cotton pads to clean his tools. An alcohol swab.
It was clinical.
He tied Rohan to a rusted pipe and waited until he woke. Slapped him once. Hard. Watched the confusion turn to fear.
"I saw you," Aryan whispered.
Rohan coughed, spitting saliva onto the floor. "What the fuck, man? Who are you?"
Aryan tilted his head. "You touched her shoulder. You said, 'Nice perfume.'"
"What? Who?"
"She's mine."
The first cut was on the stomach. Shallow. Just enough to break skin. Aryan wasn't in a hurry.
He didn't kill Rohan quickly. That wasn't the point.
He asked him questions—about his life, about what he thought love was, about girls he dated.
Rohan begged, pleaded, screamed.
But the petrol station was too far from the road. And the tiles were too clean to let the screams stay.
Before the final act, Aryan took out a blue ribbon—the same color Aanya wore every Thursday. He tied it to Rohan's wrist and then began carving the same ribbon symbol across his upper chest. A single, rough bow.
He didn't just kill. He signed.
---
Detective Kavya Mehra stood under the flickering light just past sunrise, boots pressed into the mud.
She had seen bodies before. But this one felt... off. Not just the violence, but the intimacy.
Forensics buzzed around her, collecting samples from the tiles, swabbing blood from the broken vending machine, measuring splatter range. But Kavya wasn't looking at the tools.
She was looking at the boy's posture.
Something deliberate.
She lit a cigarette and stared at the grainy CCTV footage from the bakery across the street. Timestamp: 11:39 PM. A schoolboy figure. Slim. Clean blazer. Dark shoes.
He walked with purpose.
But what struck her wasn't the face. It wasn't visible.
It was the walk.
Confident. Precise. Balanced on the balls of the feet.
Something about it stirred an old memory. A small boy, walking across her living room as a child. Avoiding creaky floorboards instinctively. Shoulders too still for someone his age.
She blinked hard.
No. It couldn't be.
She replayed the footage.
Same walk.
Her fingers trembled slightly.
She turned to the forensics lead. "Any fibers?"
He nodded. "Latex traces. No fingerprints. Boots didn't match any in the system."
"Anything unusual?"
"There's something else," the forensics tech added. "We found paint—blue acrylic. Under the body's fingernails. Victim might've struggled."
Blue.
Blue, like the ribbon.
She didn't say it out loud.
Kavya stared at the body one last time before they zipped the bag shut.
Whoever this was... they weren't done.
And they were getting bolder.
She didn't know her own son was already back in the hostel, sitting cross-legged on his bed, sketching another ribbon.
She didn't know her daughter was humming in the next room, heart fluttering at a message that read:
"Thursday's my favorite day. You look perfect in blue." — Aarav"
Aryan smiled as he sent it.
His gloves were still drying in the cupboard.
The scalpel, cleaned and polished, was wrapped in a towel under his mattress.
And the next name on his list was already circled in red.