Her heart raced, pounding so hard she was sure it would fly from her chest. Holding steady, she moved forward through the cold meat locker, through to another door. Gabe silently flanked her, his flashlight beam making horrible shadow puppets against the metal walls.

Ruby shouldered through the second door slowly, tensed for someone or something to be on the other side.

On a metal table, there was an unprocessed pig, its side mangled by puncture wounds. It wasn’t what she expected, but it was somehow worse.

“Gabe,” she whispered, casting her light around once more, making sure there were no moving, creeping shadows in the corner.

Ruby’s stomach dropped at the sight. Her personal constellation, stabbed into the swine's thick skin. Despite how many times Ruby had seen that pattern now, it seemed particularly primal and grotesque in the pig’s side. The animal was already dead, so the pattern could be perfect. It was even closer to Vallejo’s original arrangement than their victims.

“Thirteen?” Gabe asked, peering over her shoulder. Of course it was just laid out there for her like a gift. There was the answer to how he perfected the pattern, how he could do it so quickly in such a short timeframe.

“What is taking our back-up so long...” Ruby asked out loud.

Someone was there with them. She could feel it, but they were just two agents in a dark facility that their suspect knew much better than they did.

“We could cover more ground if—” Gabe began.

“No,” Ruby said instinctively, too quickly. Her chest tightened, “We cover each other.”

She hadn't meant to sound so quick, so harsh. She wasn't about to let Gabe out of her sight, not when they had assistance coming. As far as they knew, Delko hadn’t dragged a victim to the butcher with him. It went against his established M.O. to take a woman to a secondary location.

They just needed to apprehend a suspect. There was no one they needed to save just yet.

Another crash jarred them back to attention.

“You're not supposed to be in here!” a voice called through the dark, echoing off the abundant metal surfaces.

Ruby turned her gun pointed toward the source. She felt Gabe move to cover her, but he hesitated. The voice had come from the other room, inside the meat locker.

She steeled for the chase, retracing their steps back into the cold storage room.

The carcasses swung, jostled by someone lurking between the meat hooks and heavy chains.

“Three pigs ruined,” the voice echoed off the metal walls of the locker. “You'll pay for that.”

“You've got it wrong, pal,” Gabe warned, his gun pointed at the shadows.

Ruby's eyes darted between the hanging sides of meat, but she couldn't see the person hiding between them. His shadow blended in too well. Every swinging shape looked the same.