Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

- Robert Frost

CHAPTER ONE - No Rest for the Weary

Emily slapped a manilla folder full of completed paperwork on top of the barely organized pile of papers that balanced precariously in the corner of her desk. The team had just returned from a particularly draining case in Delaware that involved the deaths of several local politicians, so between fielding constant media attention and trying to catch a killer with an M.O. that spanned from blunt force trauma to drowning, it was safe to say that everyone in the BAU was ready to hunker down and pass out for twelve hours of sleep, minimum. As satisfying as it was to finally catch the serial killer and put him behind bars, the whole process of profiling and tracking a murderer for a week straight took an emotional and physical toll on everyone involved.

The noise of a pen clattering to the floor made Emily drag her tired eyes away from yet another post-case form she had to complete before turning in for the night. On the other side of her desk, Morgan had propped his head up on one hand while writing with the other. He seemed physically incapable of keeping his eyes open for one more minute. His pen had fallen from his hand mid-sentence and he hadn't even noticed.

Emily wheeled her chair around her desk and reached out to shake Morgan's shoulder gently. As soon as her hand touched him, he inhaled sharply and jolted awake.

"Hey there, sleeping beauty," Emily said with a smile. "Are you done with all your paperwork yet?"

Morgan blinked tiredly, then squinted down at the myriad of papers spread across his desk. "I can't even read this."

"I think you fell asleep mid-sentence." Emily took the paper out of his hand and tried to make out the writing. Morgan's normally neat handwriting had devolved into a jagged scrawl that was almost completely unlegible. "Yeah, I think you're going to have to redo this."

"It's not that bad… " Morgan said as he peered over the other papers he had just filled out.

"Something tells me Strauss isn't going to appreciate trying to translate your cuneiform tomorrow morning."

To her left, Reid, who had been uncharacteristically quiet for the past half hour, seemed unable to stop the stream of information that began pouring out of his mouth. "Actually, cuneiform began as a written language that was similar to other pictographic languages before it was simplified down to marks that could be easily made with a wedge-shaped stylus and clay. Words were written with distinct vertical and horizontal lines, so I don't think Chief Strauss will confuse Morgan's handwriting for cuneiform…"

"Shh, I know, Reid, Emily was just making a snarky joke," Morgan sighed.

"Oh."

"It's okay Reid, we're all tired and not fully functioning," Emily said. Her eyes felt so gritty and heavy that it was all she could do to keep them open. She tried to remember when the last time she got a full night's sleep was, but the effort to do so just made her feel even more exhausted and slightly nauseous, so she filed away the thought to worry about later and tried to focus on the papers she still had to fill out.

A muttered "uh oh" from Reid made her glance to her left again. "What's wrong?"

Reid gestured towards Hotch's office with his chin. "JJ just went in there holding a stack of folders. She looked worried."

The blinds in Hotch's office were open, so Emily could see JJ's anxious expression as she opened one of the folders and started handing what appeared to be crime scene photos to Hotch. She couldn't hear what JJ was saying, but it was clear from Hotch's deep frown that something serious had come up. Hotch and JJ spoke for a few more minutes, and in that time both of their faces seemed to become even more drawn. When they both emerged, it wasn't surprising that Hotch told them to meet in the conference room in ten minutes.

JJ came down the stairs and began passing out the folders she was holding with an extremely apologetic look on her face. "I'm sorry, guys, I know we're all beyond tired after Delaware, but this case isn't going to wait."

"Are you sure it can't wait even six hours for us all to take a nap?" Morgan asked half-heartedly. He opened his folder and sighed deeply when he saw the crime scene photos.

Emily frowned and opened up her own folder to glance over the case before moving to the conference room. Her stomach lurched unpleasantly when she saw the photos laying on top of a stack of papers. It appeared to be the body of a small girl, maybe six or seven years old, lying on the frost-covered ground of a forest while clutching a small bouquet of wildflowers. The scene would have been peaceful except for the dark bruising around the girl's neck and the open wound in the middle of her chest that was partially covered by her hands and the flowers. The girl's legs were placed completely in line with her torso, and her hands were folded across her chest so that the bouquet lined up neatly beneath her chin. The photo had a surprisingly low resolution compared to the crime scene pictures they usually received, so there wasn't much else Emily could decipher after one quick glance.

With a heavy sigh, Emily closed the folder and pushed her chair away from the desk. Reid seemed have already read the entire report, judging by the way he was gnawing on his bottom lip, and Morgan was still taking a long look at the photo of the dead girl's body. As they left for the conference room, Emily felt as though a fist had grabbed her heart and squeezed. Usually she prided herself on her ability to compartmentalize her emotions and not let them get in the way of doing her job, but cases involving children were always a struggle for her, not to mention when she was exhausted and desperately needed sleep.

Hotch, JJ, and Rossi were already waiting in the conference room. JJ had the photo of the girl's body and several closeups of the bruises and torso wound projected onto the screen while Hotch and Rossi were sitting at the table with the folders open in front of them.

"Okay JJ, let's get started," Hotch said when the others were seated.

JJ clicked her pointer at the screen, and the picture of the body zoomed in to fill the screen. "This is the body of six-year-old Becca Cooper, found this morning in a forest in Rosewood, Idaho. Becca was reported missing three days ago, and the police were looking into it as a kidnapping case before two hikers found her body while they were looking for berries off the trail they were hiking. The wound in her chest is a gunshot wound. The police believe she was shot with some type of handgun, but they're still waiting on the ballistics report to confirm the type of gun. The bruising around her neck is also indicative of manual strangulation, especially since you can see finger-shaped bruises. The coroner is working to confirm the cause of death, but judging by how damaged her chest is, the police believe that Becca bled to death within minutes of being shot."

"Something's up with her wrists too," Morgan said. "I couldn't make it out on the photo, but on the screen you can see the markings more clearly."

"The Rosewood police think that those might be restraint markings. She was physically restrained at some point by handcuffs or manacles."

"What's up with the flowers and the way she's positioned? It almost seems ritualistic, which might have something to do with why she was strangled and shot," Emily said.

Reid chimed in. "The flowers that she's holding are called sego lilies. They're a common type of wildflower in Idaho, especially up in the panhandle where Rosewood is. The unsub could have picked them there, or he could have brought them from his house or shelter." He paused to clear his throat. "Lilies are the most common flower associated with funeral services as well. They symbolize the innocence that has been restored to the dead person's soul. Almost any kind of white lily is meant to express purity."

"The way her body is positioned is also reminiscent of a body in a coffin," Hotch said quietly. "The unsub could feel remorse for killing Becca, and this is his way of symbolically burying her. Frost will have frozen the ground in Idaho at this point in December, so he couldn't dig deep enough into the ground to physically bury the body."

Emily shook her head in disbelief. "He feels remorse after kidnapping, restraining, strangling, and then shooting a six-year-old girl? That's a huge shift in his mentality."

"There's another thing I don't like about this. Why weren't we called in sooner? Usually the police let us know about a kidnapping within hours," Rossi said with a frown.

JJ hesitated. "Rosewood has a population of 2,083. The police force there is three middle-aged men who have never dealt with anything like this before. They weren't sure of the protocol before it was too late." She clicked another button, and a new girl's face flashed onto the screen. "This is Sadie Green. She was reported missing about three hours ago."

The team members stared at the little girl's school picture while their tired minds worked to process this new information. Sadie looked very similar to Becca Cooper, from her long blonde hair to the freckles speckling her rosy cheeks. Even their round noses seemed identical. The two of them easily could have passed as sisters.

"Sadie Green's parents work on a cattle ranch, like most people in Rosewood. Sadie went outside to get the dog inside the house before dark, and she must have been taken as soon as she was alone because she never came back inside according to her parents."

A heavy silence hung over the team.

"If the same unsub that killed Becca took Sadie and he continues on his schedule, we have two and a half days before Sadie is dead," Hotch finally said. He slid the photos and the papers back inside the folder in front of him. "I know that we just finished a difficult case and that we're all tired, but time is of the essence here if we want to get Sadie home to her parents safely. If we leave now we'll get to Idaho in four hours, and then we can sleep at a hotel before heading to the police station in the morning to get started."

"You got it, boss," Emily said drowsily, but she tried to put on her game face to mask how tired she really felt.

"I know this is a lot of work, but remember that a little girl's life is at stake here. We can all sleep on the plane. Wheels up in thirty."

The full moon shone brightly in the cold winter sky, lighting the earth below as though it was sunlight. The night sky was completely clear, and the cold sharpened the sight of the stars twinkling above. Far away, a wolf howled. The sound cut through the crisp air like a knife.

The man slammed the truck door shut and hopped to the ground. The crunching gravel of the road beneath his feet seemed impossibly loud as he pulled himself up into the bed of the truck. The old vehicle seemed to groan as it was jostled underneath his weight, but it had lasted so long that one more grievance wouldn't cause it to break down just yet.

In a corner of the truck bed, pressed close to the fleeting warmth that the heater inside the truck provided, was the miserable creature he'd snatched to replace the old one. The thing was shivering violently and seemed to be trying to use her own hair as a blanket against the freezing air. The man scowled at her, then picked her up by one arm and dragged her out of the truck bed and to the ground. He was sure she would have screamed if the wad of cloth in her mouth wasn't in the way.

Even though he growled at her to come quietly, the damn thing wouldn't quit struggling, so the man cuffed her sharply on the back of the head. She became very still and wouldn't stand when he told her to. He huffed in frustration, then slung her over one shoulder and carried her inside.

At least she wasn't making so much noise anymore.