"Hotch? You didn't do this, right? Hotch?" Spencer Reid's eyes bore into me. The interrogation room was badly lit, the dark one-sided mirror showing my reflection. A tired, dark-haired man stared at me, one I didn't recognise. The man had a cold streak clearly visible in his brown eyes. Eyes which were mine. I swivelled my cold, brown eyes to the man who sat opposite me. Reid; who was expecting me to answer his question.
"You want to know whether I killed him. Yes. Next question?" I spoke calmly, but inside I was shaking. Inside I was afraid. I had killed a man in cold-blood. Normal people don't have the urge to do that. Was the darkness I saw in my job pouring into my head, messing with me?
Reid had an unfamiliar expression on his face. Almost disappointment in me. Concern for my mental wellbeing was also there on his face. But Spencer Reid hates cold-blooded killers. He hates death. So I half-expected him to shout at me, show utter disgust for the man he looked up to. But the genius surprises me every time.
"I'm sorry for you, Hotch. I'm upset that you have gone down this path and I wish you hadn't. Please, Aaron," he used my first name for the first time. An interrogation technique? "Please tell me you didn't do this." He pleaded with me, abandoning all ideas of interrogation. I wanted to tell him that I hadn't. But I couldn't lie to him. He deserved more from me.
"I've told you, Spencer," I tested out saying his first name, realising how much it suited him. "I killed Geoffrey Walker. I killed the bastard and I'm not proud of it. I should die for what I've done. You should and probably do, hate me for the rest of my life. But I killed him. I've as good as left my innocent son without a father. Do you think I'm honestly proud of what I've done?"
My voice cracked, thinking of my beautiful son, how he would hate me when he was old enough to know what I did. I held in my bitter tears; completely breaking down in an interrogation is never a good idea.
Reid picked up my file, gave one final look at me and stormed out of the room, the door swinging behind him. I sighed. Now I had turned my world against me. For what?
Geoffrey Walker was a disgusting, small man of little intelligence. He barely washed; he had a shaving rash on his chin and stank of any revolting thing he had eaten the previous night. He never spoke; he leered or taunted. He looked every one of his fifty-seven years and more.
He was a stereotypical paedophile; he molested small children who did no wrong. He raped them, he touched them in ways seven or eight year olds should never be touched. When he wasn't doing this, he watched horrific child pornography on his computer, meticulously downloading the ones which really got his twisted mind going and putting them on discs.
This was his sad little life. Until he started killing his victims to shut them up. Then his already disturbed mind was filled with a lust to rape and kill small children. The small blonde boys were his favourite; they almost always screamed in a way that filled his sick little mind with desire.
His one bedroom flat was filled with body parts and lewd pictures of him doing repulsive things with his victims. He was madly happy and he thought he would never be found.
But the FBI found him. My team found him, naked, watching one of his discs, smoking weed. The mere sight of him repulsed me; as it did everyone.
When interrogated, he opened up to his crimes easily, proud to go into great detail of his crimes.
He just said it. As did I. He was a murderer; I am a murderer. Not much different.
I was as disgusting as he was.