CHAPTER 34: THE SLIDE PROBLEM
The profile changed everything.
I sat in my apartment, Lundy's words echoing through my skull like a death knell. Organized. Methodical. Keeps trophies. Works in law enforcement or has intimate knowledge of forensic procedures.
Forty-two slides hidden behind my air conditioning unit. Forty-two glass rectangles that would end my life more certainly than any electric chair.
I'd known they were a risk. Harry's voice—the System—had warned me from the beginning. Trophies are ego. Ego gets you caught. But the Dark Passenger had its own needs, its own compulsions, and the blood slides were more than evidence. They were identity. Proof that I existed, that my work mattered, that the monsters I'd removed from the world had been real.
Now that identity might kill me.
I crossed to the AC unit and carefully removed the cover. The slide box sat where it always sat—innocent-looking, the kind of container a hobbyist might use for insect specimens or mineral samples. Nothing to suggest it held the compressed biography of a serial killer.
My hands were steady as I lifted the lid.
Forty-two slides gleamed in the dim light. Forty-two stories of justice served outside the law. Mike Donovan, child killer. Brian Moser, the brother who wanted me to join his darkness. Roger Hicks, the choir director with a private cemetery. And thirty-nine more, inherited from the original Dexter—men whose crimes I'd never verified but whose deaths I'd inherited along with everything else.
[SYSTEM ALERT: EVIDENCE VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT] [BLOOD SLIDES: CRITICAL EXPOSURE RISK] [FBI PROFILE ACCURACY: 94%] [RECOMMENDED ACTION: IMMEDIATE RELOCATION OR DESTRUCTION]
Destruction. The word sat heavy in my mind.
"You know what you have to do," Harry's voice said quietly. "Every slide is a conviction. A death sentence. The FBI is too close."
"I know."
"Then why are you hesitating?"
I picked up Brian's slide. Held it to the light. The blood had dried to near-black, preserved behind glass like a moment frozen in amber. My brother's blood. The only physical proof that our connection had been real.
The Dark Passenger stirred. Not hungry—protective. These trophies were ours. They represented everything we'd accomplished, every monster we'd stopped. Destroying them felt like erasing ourselves.
"I can't just melt them down," I said. "Not yet. There has to be another way."
"There's always another way. The question is whether it's smart enough to keep you alive."
Movement outside caught my attention.
I crossed to the window, keeping my body behind the curtain. Streetlight illuminated a familiar car parked three buildings down—dark sedan, government plates, occupied by a shape I'd recognize anywhere.
Doakes.
He'd been watching my apartment for three days now. Not official surveillance—LaGuerta had told him to focus on the Butcher case, not his personal vendetta. But Doakes had never been good at following orders when his instincts screamed otherwise.
And his instincts were screaming about me.
I couldn't leave with the slides. He'd follow, and even if I lost him, he'd know I'd been carrying something important. Couldn't destroy them here—burning or dissolving forty-two slides would leave traces, and if anyone ever searched this apartment with luminol...
Trapped.
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: DOAKES SURVEILLANCE] [STATUS: ACTIVE] [ESCAPE PROBABILITY (UNDETECTED): 23%] [RECOMMENDED ACTION: CREATE DISTRACTION]
"A decoy," I murmured. "Draw him out, loop back."
"Risky. If he realizes what you're doing—"
"He won't. Doakes is good, but he's also predictable. He wants to catch me doing something wrong. Give him the illusion of progress, and he'll follow it."
I grabbed my jacket, my keys, my wallet. Normal items for a normal errand. Left the slides hidden, for now.
The plan formed as I walked to my car: drive to the grocery store, take my time, let Doakes tail me through the mundane routine of a man with nothing to hide. Then lose him in the parking garage on Third Street—tight turns, multiple exits, bad sightlines. Circle back on foot through the alley behind my building.
It would give me maybe twenty minutes. Enough time to grab the slides and get them somewhere safer.
If it worked.
The grocery store was nearly empty at this hour. I wandered the aisles with deliberate aimlessness, filling a basket with items I didn't need. Milk. Bread. A package of ground beef that would probably go bad before I remembered to cook it.
Doakes followed at a distance, making no effort to hide. That was his style—intimidation through presence. I see you. I know what you are. It's only a matter of time.
I paid for my groceries. Smiled at the cashier. Walked to my car with the unhurried pace of a man whose conscience was clear.
The parking garage on Third Street was four blocks away. I drove the speed limit, checked my mirrors, watched Doakes' sedan keep steady distance behind me.
The garage entrance swallowed my car. I accelerated through the first turn, then the second, then took the emergency exit ramp that most people didn't know existed—a maintenance route that dumped out on a side street, hidden from the main exits by a concrete pillar.
By the time Doakes realized I wasn't emerging from the normal exits, I was already six blocks away, heading back toward my apartment on foot through alleys I'd memorized months ago.
[SHADOW CHECK: A-RANK] [PURSUER STATUS: LOST (TEMPORARY)] [ESTIMATED WINDOW: 15-20 MINUTES]
Not much time. But enough.
The slides felt heavier than they should as I lifted the box from its hiding place. Forty-two rectangles of glass and dried blood, representing years of work—most of it not even mine.
I'd inherited these trophies along with everything else. The body. The hunger. The careful architecture of a life built around concealed murder. The original Dexter had collected them over decades, each one a private victory against the darkness that consumed him.
Now they might destroy me.
Brian's slide caught my eye again. I lifted it from the box, turning it in the dim light.
Hello, brother.
His voice, from that night in the shipping container. The last thing he'd said before I drove the knife home. He'd been proud of me, in that final moment. Proud that I'd become what he always wanted me to be.
A killer.
I put the slide back. Closed the box. Wrapped it in waterproof plastic, then again in a dark bag that wouldn't draw attention.
The boat was my best option. The Slice of Life had hidden compartments I'd discovered during my first weeks in this body—spaces designed for smuggling, probably, relics of whatever previous owner had used the vessel for purposes they didn't want documented.
If the boat sank, the slides went with it. If authorities ever searched it, I could dump the box overboard before they found anything. Mobile, accessible, plausibly deniable.
It would have to do.
I slipped out the back entrance of my building, the bag pressed against my chest like a secret.
The marina was twenty minutes away. I had maybe ten before Doakes figured out what had happened and started looking for me.
Time to move.
Reviews and Power Stones keep the heat on!
Want to see what happens before the "heroes" do?
Secure your spot in the inner circle on Patreon. Skip the weekly wait and read ahead:
💵 Hustler [$7]: 15 Chapters ahead.
⚖️ Enforcer [$11]: 20 Chapters ahead.
👑 Kingpin [$16]: 25 Chapters ahead.
Periodic drops. Check on Patreon for the full release list.
👉 Join the Syndicate: patreon.com/Anti_hero_fanfic