PROLOGUE - TIME FOR ME TO FLY

Forty-eight hours.

That's how long it had been since she'd had a decent night's sleep. For the past two days, Special Agent Ashley Seaver had been tracking down bad guys with the rest of her team, an elite division of the F.B.I. known as the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Together, they had apprehended the prime suspect in a series of kidnappings that had plagued Kansas City for years, possibly even decades.

But it wasn't until Ashley and her team had arrived in Kansas last Wednesday that the local police had even realized they had a serial murderer on their hands.

Ashley blew out a sigh and leaned back in one the plastic orange-and-metal chairs that lined the wall of the airport from which they would be departing. How many lives were lost? How many were still unaccounted for? They had stopped counting at twenty-nine missing and twenty-seven dead. One woman was still unaccounted for. The other had been found in the nick of time.

The sound of rustling beside her caught her attention, and Ashley opened her eyes in time to see the rest of her team leaving to board their jet.

Were they even going to tell me they were leaving? Ashley asked herself, but tried not to think too much about it. The team had gone through a lot of changes in the past couple of years, and being the new girl, she could empathize with the others and their reluctance to get to know her better.

Her acerbic team leader, Aaron Hotchner, threw her a pointed look and tapped his index finger against his watch face. She gave him a tight-lipped smile and prepared herself for what was coming next. No doubt about it, she was ready to be home, in her own apartment, in her own bed, but she was not excited about what it would take to get there:

Five hours in a jet with a team who hated her.

With the exception of Agent Rossi, everyone was seated when she boarded the plane. She looked around and noticed once again how everyone had spread out, some of them taking up two seats. Odd for such a close-knit team. It was as though they wanted to be as far away from each other as was possible.

Morgan was slunk low in the seat, playing Angry Birds on his iPhone, one long leg propped up on the seat in front of him.

"Can I-?" Ashley said.

Morgan looked up at her. She motioned to the seat nearest the window, and he lowered his leg to the floor so she could get by.

"Thanks," she said as she fastened herself in.

Morgan didn't say anything. He had returned to his game.

He's had a long day, she told herself as she leaned her head back into the over-sized leather seat and closed her eyes as the pilot prepared for takeoff. We're all on edge.

Once the plane was in the air, it didn't take long for her mind to switch into auto-pilot mode.

I hope the surviving victim, Pauline, is okay. I've counseled a lot of women at shelters and being held hostage by a serial killer leaves scars. Big ones.

So does being the daughter of one. Seaver glanced over at Morgan. Scars that keep me from connecting to my teammates. Do they sense how broken I am inside? How damaged? It doesn't matter how many accolades and awards I receive. How many jobs I hold.

I've worked sex crimes in Manhattan SVU because someone has to do it. As a lab tech uncovering evidence in CSI, coaxed confessions out of murderers in the LAPD, and even as a covert operative in the CIA.

I won an Olymphic gold medal in a relay race, even after I tore my achilles' tendon. I will never forget the sound of the tendon popping off my ankle, so like a gunshot. But I couldn't let my team down. Even if they didn't understand what it cost me.

But none of it matters. Not then, and not at the BAU. They will always see me as Seaver: Child of the Redmond Ripper. I am half of the monster they hunt every day.

Who am I to expect them to love me? To accept me? I can only hope that someday, somehow, I earn their trust. That I can make up for the sins of my father.

Seaver took an iPod out of her bag. She didn't want to put it on right away, just in case Morgan needed to talk about the gruesome crime scene they'd all witnessed. She had a degree in counselling, and she might be able to ease some of his burden.

But he was still playing Angry Birds.

She put the earbuds in her ears, and Five Finger Death Punch started to play "Far from Home".

"Cause it's almost like, your heaven's trying everything to keep me out." The voice crooned in her ears. Tears pricked her eyes. She could relate a little too well to this song, but she couldn't skip it. She felt compelled to hear the rest of the song, like this was part of her penance. Her long road to salvation.

But sometimes, oh sometimes, the road seemed so long.

The jet dropped, sending Ashley's stomach on a roller coaster ride. She shot forward and opened her eyes, and saw that everyone was wearing the same look of surprise and relief and maybe even trepidation that she was.

"You know, air pockets like that one aren't uncommon when you're traveling between ten and fifteen thousand feet," Reid said. "It's usually nothing, but sometimes turbulence is an indicator of an electrical storm or-"

No sooner were the words out of Reid's mouth than the jet dropped again. Ashley looked over at Morgan. He'd put away his cell phone, but she could still hear the soundtrack to Angry Birds emanating from his back pocket.

Desperate for assurance, Ashley cast her glance back at Reid, who was fastening his seatbelt across his lap. Almost as though he could sense her apprehension, he looked up at her. Their eyes locked and he flicked her a kind smile.

"We'll be fine," she imagined him telling her. "This is just a precaution."

Then her thoughts strayed to what could never be, and she imagined him switching seats with Morgan, lacing his hands in hers. "We'll be fine, Ashley. I won't let anything happen to you."

Her heartbeat sped up, and not just because the plane was now bouncing through the air. But Reid could never love a woman like her. She was half the monster he hunted. She wasn't his type. The other team mates whispered about Reid and JJ's love affair, before that hick from Louisiana got in the way. If JJ was the sort of woman that Reid preferred, than Ashely didn't stand a chance in hell.

The plane bounced again, and she let out a little yelp.

Morgan snorted under his breath, "Amateur."

She desperately wanted to explain that when she was paradiving into foreign countries to retrieve refugees one day the plane went down. She spent days marooned on a wretched little island in the Pacific. Ever since then she'd been terrified of jets, and it took all her willpower to get on the jet every time they had a case outside of the tri-county area.

But someone has to catch the monsters, and who better but a half-monster herself?

"It's okay, Ashley." Reid smiled at her, but it was strained. How sweet of him to care about her feelings like that. But that was just his nature; he was the kindest, gentlest soul she'd ever met.

She would stop at nothing to make sure he stayed that way-innocent and pure. She wouldn't let the monsters turn him into one.

A bright light flashed in her eye. It was clear now, why she was here. She was here to not just save the countless victims of serial killers and arson bombists, but to save the team from themselves.

She was already half way gone, but maybe, just maybe, they could be her road to salvation. She could lead them away from the darkness, and save herself in the process.