Bad to the Bone A Psychopathic Killer with No Remorse

They called him Eli Cross — a name whispered in the hallways of every police department across the East Coast. No fingerprints. No DNA. Just the echo of his work — methodical, clean, precise.

To the public, he was no one. To the FBI, he was a ghost.

But to himself, he was art.

He didn’t kill for revenge. He didn’t kill for money.

He killed for balance — or at least the version of balance he understood.

Eli had learned early that people lied — and not just in words. They lied in smiles, in apologies, in the way they touched you while hiding knives behind their backs.

His mother had been the first liar. A preacher’s daughter who told the world she was pure, even as she bruised her child behind closed doors. His father — a decorated soldier — taught him that empathy was a weakness.

By the time Eli was sixteen, he understood what most adults never did:

The world doesn’t care who bleeds — only who hides it better.

He stopped trying to be seen.

And he became what he was meant to be.

The first time he killed, it wasn’t planned. A drunk man in an alley — a stranger — who tried to mug him. Eli had no weapon, just instinct. One strike, then another. When it was over, he didn’t feel guilt. He felt silence.

Peace.

He never looked back.

That night, under the pale streetlight, he whispered,

“Bad to the bone.”

and smiled.

The phrase stayed with him — not as a taunt, but as identity.

Years later, his killings became legends among law enforcement.

He left calling cards — not notes or symbols, but a feeling: a kind of cold elegance. No fingerprints, no chaos, no rush.

He’d sit across from his victims before doing it — talk to them, learn them. He wanted to know why they pretended to be good.

“People like you,” he would say softly, “make monsters like me necessary.”

And then — silence.

But even monsters get curious.

And Eli found his curiosity the day he met Dr. Grace Mallory, a forensic psychologist assigned to his case.

He didn’t know she existed until he saw her on television. Her interview replayed in the background of a diner he had stopped in.

“This man doesn’t kill out of rage,” she said calmly, her dark eyes steady on the camera. “He kills out of philosophy. He thinks he’s correcting the world — one imperfection at a time.”

For the first time in his life, Eli felt something strange:

Recognition.

Someone understood him.

Two months later, Grace received a letter.

No return address. Just three words written in elegant handwriting:

You see me.

The police surrounded her house, expecting an attack. But nothing came. Weeks passed.

Then, one night, as she sat in her office reviewing crime scene photos, she looked up — and saw him.

Eli Cross.

Standing in the doorway, calm as dusk.

She froze. But he only smiled.

“You talk about me like I’m a story,” he said softly. “You ever wonder how it ends?”

Grace met his eyes, steady despite the fear crawling up her spine. “It ends with you alone. Because people like you always are.”

He tilted his head, as if studying an animal.

“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe it ends when I find someone who doesn’t pretend.”

For a long moment, neither spoke.

Then, just as quietly as he came, Eli walked away.

He left no trace — except a single Polaroid on her desk.

It was her, from across the street.

On the back, in that same beautiful handwriting:

Bad to the bone. But not beyond redemption.

The killings stopped. For a year. Then two.

The FBI assumed he was dead. Grace didn’t believe it.

Sometimes, she’d wake in the middle of the night and swear she saw someone standing across the street — a shadow, patient and familiar.

Some nights, she’d whisper into the dark,

“If you’re still out there… what are you waiting for?”

No answer ever came.

But once, just once, she found a white rose left on her car windshield — clean, perfect, and marked with a single fingerprint.

Eli’s fingerprint.