Damian

Quinn didn’t lower the gun.

For a moment, the room seemed to close in around them, the quiet stretching just enough to make every sound feel sharper than it should have been.  He raised his hands slowly.

“Okay, that feels excessive. I get why you did it, I do, but still... can you lower the gun before I faint?”, Damian said in a panicked voice.

Quinn didn’t react. “You’re in a crime scene.”

“I noticed,” he replied, a little too fast. “Hard to miss, really. Dead body, tense atmosphere, you pointing a gun at me. Whole thing is very clear. HAHA.”

Quinn took a step closer, her grip steady, her expression unreadable as she studied him more carefully now. He wasn’t as composed as she had first thought. 

“Let’s try this again,” she said. “Why are you here?”

He let out a short breath, almost a laugh, but there was an edge to it. “I told you, my name is Damian. I heard about the case and got curious.”

“That’s not enough.” Quinn replied.

“I know, I know,” he said quickly, nodding like he was trying to keep up with his own thoughts. “It sounds bad. Random guy shows up, stands near a dead body, refuses to explain himself. I get it. Not my best first impression.”

Quinn didn’t blink. He glanced briefly toward the body, then back at her, like he couldn’t help himself.

“It’s just... this case doesn’t make sense,” he added, words coming faster now. “No forced entry, no visible injuries, nothing disturbed. That doesn’t happen. Not like this. People don’t just die neatly... unless it's a serial killer?”

Quinn’s eyes narrowed slightly. “That information isn’t public.”

“I didn’t say it was,” he shot back, then immediately winced like he realized how that sounded. “Okay, that came out wrong.”

“Everything you’re saying is coming out wrong.” Quinn told him annoyingly.

Damian let out a quiet breath, his eyes lifting to hers again for half a second too long. Quinn noticed then that he looked different up close. Less suspicious. More distracting.

His shirt sleeves were rolled unevenly, dark hair falling messily over his forehead like he had been running his hands through it for hours, and despite the panic in his voice, he kept holding her gaze without backing away.

Quinn didn’t like that she noticed any of it.

He dragged a hand through his hair, pacing once before catching himself and stopping, like he had just remembered there was a gun still pointed at him.

“I’m a profiler,” he said, more quickly now, like he was trying to get the words out before she decided to pull the trigger. “Behavioral patterns, decision-making, all of that. I consult. Not officially, obviously, because people don’t like admitting they need that kind of help, but I do.”

Quinn watched him in silence.

“And this,” he continued, gesturing slightly toward the body before stopping himself again, “this isn’t random. Whoever did this planned it. Took their time. They weren’t in a hurry, which means they weren’t afraid of being interrupted, which means they knew the environment. Or they knew the victim.”

Quinn took another step closer but her gun didn’t waver.

“Check the scene again.” Damian said, with his hands still up in the air.

Quinn didn’t move. “Why?”

“Because if I’m right,” he said, his voice dropping slightly, the panic threading through it but not completely taking over, “he didn’t see it coming. Which means it wasn’t force. It was something he took willingly.”

She lowered the gun just enough to move freely and stepped closer to the desk again, forcing herself to slow down this time, to look past the surface of the scene instead of accepting how clean it appeared. Her gaze moved carefully over each object, the glass, the papers, the pen placed neatly to the side, everything arranged in a way that felt deliberate rather than natural.

“His hand,” Damian said finally, the words coming out more certain this time.

Quinn’s attention shifted instantly, her eyes dropping to Blackwood’s hand with sharper focus than before. At first glance, it looked like she remembered, slightly curled, not fully relaxed, the kind of detail that could easily be ignored in a clean scene like this. 

She leaned in, closing the distance, her eyes narrowing as she studied the skin more carefully.

A faint discoloration along the inside of his index finger, it wasn’t a bruise or dirt. It looked like residue, something transferred rather than natural.

“He touched something right before he died.”

“If it was poison, it wasn’t in the drink,” she said, her gaze already moving back across the desk.

Her eyes moved across the surface once more, slower this time, more deliberate. Not the glass or the files... but the pen.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cloth before picking it up, turning it slowly between her fingers as the light caught along its surface.

A faint, almost invisible sheen along the grip, not ink, not oil, something thinner, something that didn’t belong.

Quinn placed the pen back down carefully, her mind already moving ahead, piecing it together faster now. Blackwood reaches for the pen. Signs something, or tries to. The contact is enough. No struggle. No noise. By the time he understands something is wrong, it’s already over.

She turned back to Damian slowly, her expression no longer just guarded, but sharper, more focused in a way that had nothing to do with the victim.

“You saw that from across the room?” she asked suspiciously.

“I didn’t see everything,” he said quickly, like he needed to correct it. “I just noticed the hand first. It didn’t match the rest of the scene, and then the pen was off and I just… connected it. It’s not-” he stopped himself, exhaling, running a hand through his hair again. “It’s not as impressive as it sounds.”

Quinn didn’t respond. She just looked at him, really looked this time. "But profilers didn’t usually get ahead of detectives on their own scenes."

Her gaze lingered on the man standing a few feet away from her, trying and failing to look less suspicious.

"Who really are you, Damian?" She whispered to herself.