Guardian Angel
Her fingers traced down the jaw-line of the photo as she swallowed, slowly pulling back her fingers to touch his short, golden, hair.
"You're perfect.." She whispered in the silence of the room, standing before her closet door where photo were tacked, straight in a professional manner. "You're beautiful..genius..perfect."
Her thumb slid down his neck and a sudden shock of ecstasy ran through her spine. She sighed dreamily and let herself fall back into the dark violet blankets, grabbing them quickly with a large smile plastered on her face as she stared at the ceiling, filled with blown up pictures of the man she couldn't stop looking at.
"..I don't care if you ever know I exist..I don't care if you even think I'm ugly or weird..I just want to be there..in your presence...in your burning halo of perfection...my love.."
He was everything she ever wanted.
"You're mine..and I think you'll find I take very good care of things that are mine..you'll never be bothered again..." Her voice trailed off before standing up to stare at the newspaper articles all about the man of her dreams, in perfect wooden frames, hanging and covering the entire wall.
"Dr. Spencer Reid.."
Reid cursed beneath his breath at his utter ignorance as he ran through the rain, trying to find a decent cover. He shook his head and blinked furiously at the morning sky, covered in dark, ominous, clouds.
"I knew it was going to rain..how could I have forgotten an umbrella?" He whispered clutching his leather messenger bag in aggravation before dashing to the next cover, as many people were doing.
Many people forgot to watch the news when they had to go to work so early.
Street lights provided some sort of light, however, not enough, and accidentally, he slipped. He gritted his teeth as he felt the sharp stinging sensation of a cut open up on his hand, and looking down, he discovered it wasn't exactly small.
It was a long cut, stretching across his entire palm, and to make matters worse, it was deep.
He shook his head and rolled his eyes. Any other person might would swallow and push back a few tears, but after being shot a few times, this could be considered nothing, easily.
He found nothing to wipe the blood on and instead leached his hand, hoping this would cause the blood to clot more effectively and lessen the amount of blood.
Footsteps came in hurriedly behind him as he made it to the next cover, and through the bleak, heavy rainfall, he saw a relatively young woman who looked to perhaps be only a few years older than him.
"You fell..are you alright?"
Reid raised an eyebrow, "Oh, yes. Thank you, but I'm fine."
"Are you sure? I'm a nurse, as you can see." She replied motioning towards her scrubs with a small smile, "I have some supplies here, if you'd like for me to take a small look see?"
He shrugged a little, "Sure..I mean, I think it could probably use a bandage or something. Thank you, very much."
"Oh, it's not a problem." She replied with a quick smile and nod before opening up her bag with a large red cross. " Let's move over here." She whispered as she led him to a metal bench underneath a cover, next to a small boutique.
"Alright, let me see.." She whispered before he held his hand out, the blood covering every inch of his palm.
She made a small hissing sound, "Ouch..what did you hit your hand on?"
"..The curb, I believe."
She shook her head before smiling, "Did you forget an umbrella?"
He laughed lightly and nodded, "Worst part is, I knew it was going to rain. I just forgot."
She laughed and nodded before cleaning her hands with an anti-bacterial towelette, and then pulled out another from the packaging and did the same thing with his own hand, applying pressure to stop the bleeding.
"I have to ask, sir, might you be Dr. Spencer Reid? I've read tons of articles on you."
He blinked a moment, "Yes, that's me."
"You're quite impressive, I must say...This cut is deep.."
"Thank You..and, how deep do you mean?"
"Well.." She murmured, "I'm just glad you allowed me to assist you." She then quickly probed the wound for anything possibly inside, and quickly took out some gauze. "I would usually suggest stitches but..think you can go without them." She whispered as she put some anti-bacterial cream on the cut and quickly applied the bandage material, wrapping it around about six times, covering the entire palm.
"You'll be fine, hun. But try not to slip anymore." She replied quickly before closing her bag and throwing away some of the papers and packaging into the disposal can beside them.
"Thank You, a lot..."
"Marsha. Marsha Bakers."
"Thanks, Miss. Bakers."
She nodded and handed over her umbrella to him, a solid black dripping wet, umbrella.
"Oh, I couldn't. But thanks again." Reid replied, standing up, the cut on his hand still sore and throbbing.
"Oh, no, I insist. I have a car. I just saw you slip while driving and pulled over. I have another one in my car, don't worry about it. I would hate to think you slipped and fell again all because you didn't have an umbrella."
Reid smiled in thanks, took the umbrella, and this time, walked, towards the FBI building, as he did every morning.
As the young agent finally made it into the meeting room, he realized he was the last to enter as he sat down carefully.
"You..okay?" Morgan questioned with one raised up eyebrow, a small trick he learned from Reid himself.
"What? Yeah, I'm fine..why?"
Morgan made a gesture towards his hand and as Reid looked down, he had forgotten that he had ever even been injured, despite the fact that it was still throbbing.
"..Oh. That? I just slipped this morning, in the rain, on my way to work, a nurse was there and..well she kind of insisted that she help me. She was nice though.."
Morgan sat back with a smirk, "Was she hot?"
Reid looked alarmed and blushed deeply, "I didn't pay attention to those sort of details.." He whispered quickly, looking about the team for support, but found that everyone was simply smiling as well. "What?"
"Nothing, nothing." Morgan raised his hands in defense.
"Reid, she was obviously just trying to hit on you. I mean, come on. How bad could the cut have been?" JJ finished off with a light smile of innocence.
"..she suggested stitches.." Reid replied with an uninterested expression as though to say, 'I won.'
"Oh." Murmured Morgan,
"Do you think you need them? The case can wait a few hours." Hotch replied shortly, with a look of slight concern.
"No, we can just start with the case. I'm fine, really."
"Alrght." Hotch replied quickly, taking out the case files and sliding it onto the desk, "Multiple kidnappings have been taken place in a few different states, all of which is thought to be done by the same person. All of them are children, taken from carousel rides. The next day the children are found dead, strangled and burned across the face with a cross."Hotch summarized quickly as they each took a file and began pouring over the contents it held.
"Why a cross? Is this person possibly a religious fanatic?" Morgan suggested, looking at the victim's small faces, eyes closed with a cross burn across the left cheek of the face.
"More than likely." Added Hotch.
"All of the victims are boys, were there any signs of sexual abuse?" Emily questioned with a careful look at the children.
"All of them, yes." Hotch replied with a slight wince on his face, rarely did cases ever affect him, however, the faces on the photographs of the small boys, simply strung a chord.
He couldn't imagine one of those photo's containing the small, fragile form of Jack, a cross burned onto his left cheek, cold and dead.
"They were all found dead at the park they were kidnapped at. That shows signs that he finds the children to simply be disposable. He kidnaps them, does what he wants with them, and then burns a cross in their face as though it symbolizes he's been forgiven for what he's done. He drops them back off at the park as if he never did anything. Maybe he's' trying to forget it, the cross symbolizing he's moving on.." Reid spilled out quickly with a shrug, "It's only a guess though.."
"A good one, though." Rossi admitted as he re-situated himself in his seat, cocking his head to the side as he stared on at the victims.
"Then there's the numbers written on each of the boy's shirts..They aren't done in any order as far as I can tell. So it must be a code, two, is the first number, three, is the second. Then he continuously does this, two, three, two, three, two, three...If you put them together, it makes the number twenty-three."
"So?" JJ questioned not fully understanding just yet.
"Well, Reid continued, "He takes two boys or sometimes three boys at a time. But two and three together, it again makes twenty-three, and finally he performs his kidnappings twenty-three days apart.
"Okay." Morgan replied, face confused.
"Explain, Red?" Hotch replied.
"Well, theres actually a huge conspiracy against the number twenty-three. Many are terrified of the number twenty-three, it's even considered to be a rational phobia. Some, though, are intrigued by it and devote their lives to studying it. Followers range from Hitler to Buddha."
"Okay, that's nuts.."Morgan replied, shaking his head, "So, what can we inference off of that?"
"Well, most conspiracy theorists are kind of anti-social, not too keen on going outside, but they have to make money somehow, so they usually do online things. Ebay and craigslist. Stuff like that." Emily said.
"Right, but he also clearly knows where and how to snatch these kids from parks. So we're looking for someone whose pale if white, anti-social, has no kids, but hangs around kids parks with carousels. He probably doesn't maintain himself very well considering this much of the profile." Morgan finished off.
"We should probably talk with all of the kids parent's, right?" Rossi questioned, looking to Hotch who nodded once in agreement.
"The parent's were all part of a support group, not unlike the last case we did having to do with child kidnappings." Hotch replied, "we need to get all of their phone numbers."
Reid looked back down at the bandaging, beginning to fiddle a certain string that had come off from the side of it, and when he looked back up, he was greeted with the face of Garcia on the computer screen, her blonde hair up in a bee-hive, her bright pink make-up and large smile greeting him happily, even in the early mornings.
"Good Morning my babies!" She announced loudly,
"Garcia, Garcia.." Rossi mumbled, shaking his head quickly.
"What?"
"It's too early for all that just yet."
"Oh, sorry." She whispered apologetically before regaining her smile,
"Can you do a little digging?" Morgan questioned with knowing smile.
"Faster that you can twirl, my chocolate whirl-wind." She replied with a large, toothy grin.
He laughed a bit and shook his head, "Okay, okay. Did you get the case file of what were working on?"
"Sure did. I'm not sure I like this case very much..in fact I find that I usually don't like any of our cases very much."
Morgan shook his head, "Me either."
"We're looking for the phone numbers of the parent's names that are listed. The phone numbers listed as of now could be outdated or they might have changed it." Reid stepped in with a soft expression about his face.
Garcia smiled to him, but slowly it changed into a frown, "What happened to you, buttercup?"
Reid looked at her suspiciously, "Oh, the hand? It's nothing. I fell from the rain we had this morning. Slipped. A nurse was there and she fixed it for me."
"Oh, well, she sounds nice, did you get her phone number?"
Morgan snickered as did a few of the others but Reid ignored this and simply blushed, "No, she was a lot older than me."
Garcia's let out a guffaw and then covered her hand over her mouth before shaking her head, "Okay..okay..I'll get those numbers pronto.."
And as the laughing died down everyone sighed, facing the truth that this case was going to be another hardship.