My apartment; a quaint amount of space I woke up in every morning. This one was no different, except my cell phone had suddenly become my alarm for the day. I slid my hand off the mattress of my double bed and onto the solid brown nightstand at my side. My fingers tapped the wood until they wrapped around my singing, vibrating phone.

"Chleo?" came the familiar stern voice through the speaker. "It's Hotch." I figured he'd introduced himself as that too many times before.

"Uncle Aaron?" My voice cracked. "I don't remember you being such a morning person." I rubbed the leftover eyeliner from the previous night off my eyelids.

"You'd be a morning person too if you had a new case to investigate."

I sat straight up in bed. "Give me forty-five minutes?"

"Thirty."

"Deal," I said and hung up immediately. I'd been trying to get a job at the BAU ever since I'd graduated college, 5 years ago. I was nineteen.

Really, it's not that extreme. I only skipped two grades, but I'd taken so many Advanced Placement courses that I was a year ahead's worth of college credits. I wasn't a genius. My IQ was 152. Charts on Google will tell anyone that's in the 99.24 percentile. However, I've associated with higher. I didn't have any freakish gifts like speed-reading or the ability to count how many toothpicks are in a box 3 seconds after they spill onto the floor in front of me.

There were plenty of things in the world I still didn't understand and could not do or figure out. I was just good at school, and now I was good at profiling people; part of the reason Uncle Aaron saw fit to get me the job.

I jumped out of bed and sprinted to the bathroom. After a 5-minute shower and 5 minutes of drying my hair, I pushed the short, brunette strands into a ponytail. Then I took it down again. I looked better with it shaped around my face. I spread some new blue eyeliner across my lids and dashed to the closet. Formal attire: black pants, cute- yet walkable- heels, and a deep purple, v-neck sweater. I had 15 minutes, and I hadn't brushed my teeth. I swore under my breath and wasted 3 more minutes to clean my mouth.

Digging my keys out of my purse, I jammed my index finger into the "basement/garage" button in the elevator. Two more minutes wasted. I jogged in the heels to my silver Stratus and tossed my purse into the passenger seat.

I sped out of the garage and out of the apartment parking lot. Luckily, it only took me eight minutes to get to "work". I knew exactly where to find Uncle Aaron. Even better; I nearly slammed right into him in my haste.

"Chleo!" he exclaimed, his eyes widening a bit.

I smiled. "Twenty-nine minutes and still forty-two seconds to spare," I greeted.

He didn't say anything- but smiled- for a moment.

I caught my breath. "So, what were you saying about a case on the phone?"

"In short," he began. "The BAU is impressed with your resume and want to see how you do under the pressure of a real case, despite your age."

I blinked. "My age?"

He chuckled. "You'll be beating Reid by three years for the title of youngest member of the team."

The whole time we'd been talking, I'd followed Uncle Aaron down a hallway, through a desk area and up some stairs. He opened up a door to one of the briefing rooms just as I asked, "Who?"

As I looked into the room, I suddenly could feel the pressure my uncle had been referring to. There were five people just staring at me. Two guys; three women. Two of the women were smiling at me, and one was looking away, talking to one of the guys. The other held a piece of paper in his hands and was the only one standing up in front of the whiteboard in the front of the room. He was looking at me inquisitively. We made eye contact, and it made me blush.

"Introductions," started Uncle Aaron after clearing his throat. He circled around the table, starting with the woman nearest me. "This is our Tech Analyst Penelope Garcia, Special Agent Emily Prentiss, and Special Agent Jennifer Jareau," he paused and gestured to the black officer. "That's Special Agent Derek Morgan, and Special Agent and Genius Dr. Spencer Reid." I nodded to all of them and smiled in greeting. He moved back next to me and gestured toward me. "Team, this is Chleo Johnson. Consider her a Special Agent, but an…intern, per say."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. "Thank you for the introduction…Hotch."

A smile curved onto his lips. He sat down in one of the chairs, and I sat down next to him. I had no clue what to do at the moment, but I figured that I could just follow what my uncle did for now. Emily Prentiss was the first to speak to me. "So, do you two know each other?"

I glanced over at Hotch, trying to think of him more as a superior than just my uncle now. He was looking at a file and responded after a moment without looking up. "She's my niece."

If I didn't know any better, which I don't think I did, I would've said that the room had gotten quieter than it had when we walked in. There was definitely an identifiable awkward silence. I swallowed hard. The man named Spencer Reid spoke up next. "How old are you?"

Something about the question made me blush. I didn't know why. "Twenty-four," I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt.

Penelope Garcia was next. She gasped lightly, "I know who you are; I saw your resume. The only time I'd ever seen as many academic awards was when Spencer got here." She nodded her head toward him. I smiled a bit, finally relaxing as a conversation started.

Derek Morgan spoke. "So, looks like Reid's got some competition in the brains department?"

I laughed a little, remembering the things Hotch had told me about Spencer Reid. "I really am not that brilliant; I was just good at school. There was nothing I liked better than being able to disappear in a history book or solve a quadratic equation for 'x'." For references to advanced classes, those were pretty easy. But everyone on the team looked at me as if I'd just spoken Japanese, except Spencer. I blushed.

"Reid will be working with her on this case. I figured one genius and another half-genius could work well together," said Hotch, still not looking up from the file yet.

I began to feel extremely uncomfortable again.

"Sounds great."

My head snapped up from my folded hands in my lap. Reid had said it. He was smiling at me, and even though I knew he was just doing it because he knew I was uncomfortable, I smiled back.

When I was assigned a desk, I stuck my purse under it and sat in the chair. I rubbed my eyes tiredly and sat back up straight, suddenly thinking a lot about coffee. The briefing had been about a triple homicide that had occurred the night before, following other murders in the past few weeks. We knew the profile of the UNSUB already and had warned the local police. It was a man, believably Caucasian. He was large and capable of dragging bodies in specific positions for the authorities to find looking as if they were spending time as a family. It gave me the shivers to think about it, but nevertheless I had listened for the rest. He worked with tools and was good with his hands, and was believed to drive some sort of pick-up truck.

Spencer and I were in charge of locating the UNSUB, based on any evidence gathered. There wasn't really anything we could do at the moment; we had no leads. So far, it was a boring case. Secretly, I'd been hoping we'd get to go somewhere on the jet today. It would have been an exciting first case to be working on.

"Do you want some coffee?"

My head perked up from my hands, and I looked over at Spencer. "I was just thinking about it actually."

He nodded. "I figured."

I nearly laughed. "That good at figuring people out, are you?"

Spencer smiled a little. "That and the fact that you were rubbing your eyes, and there's eyeliner left on your top eyelids from yesterday."

I furrowed my eyebrows at him. "I see."

Suddenly, he looked away. A bright pink color covered his cheeks. "Sorry, I tend to overanalyze sometimes."

"I know what you mean."

He looked back up again, and this time he moved his chair over to my desk. "What's your IQ?"

I answered without missing a beat. "152. Yours?"

"187."

My eyes widened. I'd met other people in the past with IQ's higher than mine, but never that high. "Really?" I propped my elbow on the desk and rested my head in my hand. "That's fascinating." His chocolate brown eyes locked on mine.

"I can read 20,000 words per minute and have an eidetic memory," he said, folding his arms on my desk. "And graduated high school at age 12."

I'm glad I'd given him the chance to brag; he deserved it. "Wow. I was a freshman at the age of 12, and I took AP courses for nearly all of my high school years, but that's about it. I skipped a year of college and got a PhD in psychology. That's how I made it here."

He smiled. "That's pretty extraordinary as well."

I shook my head. "It's nowhere near a photographic memory!" I exclaimed.

His smile lingered, and the small breath of a quieted laugh exited his mouth. "Not many people find it that extraordinary."

I smiled at him. "That's because they don't know the statistics of someone born with the kind of talent we- you- have." I corrected myself quickly. He took notice; I knew he did, but he didn't say anything.

Instead, a tan file folder was plopped down in front of us. "Regis, Kelly, got a new crime scene to look at," said Morgan, grabbing his jacket from his desk. I glanced at Reid, and the two of us shot up from our chairs and followed him.

"Reid, Chleo, you're with me," called Hotch. I kept reminding myself to remember him as that from now on. Hotch, Hotch, Hotch, not Uncle Aaron. Hotch.

I smiled at Reid, "Shotgun." And followed my uncle out into the parking lot. It felt weird to be grabbing a real gun after months of only training with one filled with blanks. I felt as if I moved my fingers wrong, it would go off in my hand without my consent. "How long does holding a real gun feel awkward?" I asked anyone, absentmindedly before we loaded into two cars.

"The feeling goes away after a week or two," answered Morgan, smiling. I laughed a bit.

In the car, Reid and I received more information on exactly what we were going to see. "Family of three; mother, father and son, found dead at the dinner table. Meal appears to be half eaten, and the bodies are in such exact positions that passing neighbors literally thought they were in the middle of dinner."

I imagined how creeped out I'd be if I passed a family dinner then later learned they were all dead. "What did the other families consist of?" I asked, looking toward my uncle.

"Same thing; mother, father, and child. All of the families are in positions as if spending time with each other; eating dinner, watching a movie, posing for a photo, etc."

I thought about that. "Is it possible the unsub is picturing these as the family he had?"

Reid leaned forward to talk between the two of us. "I think it might be more of the fact that he's picturing the family he wishes he had. It's possible that he could have been abused as a child whether mentally, physically, sexually, etc."

I peered at him. "That would make sense, especially if he was an only child. It would go with the fact that the families only have one child in them."

"I'll make a note to tell the local police."

It sounded like a breakthrough in the car, but really, we had nothing. We knew he was a built white guy with a pick-up truck, not really enough to put out an APB on. Nevertheless, we entered the crime scene determined to find something.

The front door was wide open. A few police officers stood by behind crime scene tape while we entered the house. Spencer handed me a pair of blue latex gloves to put on to examine the kitchen table where the three family members sat perfectly.

Only the little boy was slouched down onto the table, his arms splayed onto the wood with his eyes closed and his head near the dinner plate. His fingers were open next to a cup of juice, as if previously wrapped around it. A sudden lump entered my throat. He'd been severely beaten; yet he was so little I had to kneel down to match his height in the chair. I examined him the best I could without moving the body. He had bruises on his head and neck. Any more that may have been under his clothes, I couldn't see. Prentiss took pictures of the scene while Spencer and I were examining. "Is it alright if I move the body by now?" I asked anyone who would answer.

"I've got all the photos I need; go ahead," said Prentiss. I nodded and reached for the boy's head with both hands, planning to sit him up straight.

I didn't realize what my right thumb had felt until I could count the slight "thump, thump" beats coming from his neck. My eyes widened, and I gasped. "We need an ambulance!" I cried out the front door, picking up the boy and laying him flat on the ground.

"Chleo, what are you doing?" asked Spencer, abandoning the parents' bodies.

"He has a pulse," I said, moving my hair behind my ear to listen for the boy's breath. There was none. He didn't have enough time to wait, especially after the amount of time he'd been left here. "He's alive; we need a medic now!"

I clinched the boy's nostrils shut and breathed into his mouth. It was unsanitary to do so, but what did I care? It was a child. I breathed twice, and then switched to chest compressions, pressing a hand down on his chest to keep the blood pumping from his heart. "One, two, three," I whispered to myself. "Four, five." I breathed twice again. My hand was firmly on his chest again before he started coughing uncontrollably. Just as I heard sirens coming up the street, I lifted him into a sitting position, making sure to keep his airway open. "Hi, sweetie, you're going to be okay now."

The boy wasn't any older than six or seven. When the medics rushed in, I let them take him and put him on a stretcher. Right before they put a breathing mask over his face, he muttered, "Thank you."

For a moment, I just knelt there on the floor. I couldn't even recall how I'd known what to do. I'd learned how to do CPR back in the ninth grade in Health class but had never used it until now. I looked up at Spencer and Prentiss, who were just staring at me. None of us said anything. Hotch and Morgan suddenly came running in.

"What happened?" ordered Hotch.

Spencer answered. "The little boy was alive; Chleo started CPR and got him breathing again."

My uncle looked at me and nodded curtly. "Nice job," he said.

I smiled a bit. "Thanks." Spencer reached out a hand and helped me up. "Do you think the unsub knew the boy was alive when he left?"

Spencer shook his head. "No, he would have finished him off. It doesn't seem plausible."

I brushed a hand through my hair. "Well, I think we should follow him to the hospital. Maybe when he's conscious, we can get a physical description."

"Good idea," chimed in Hotch. "Here," he handed the keys to Spencer. "You two go; I'll go back with Morgan and get information about the bodies from the ME, see if we can get any new leads from Garcia."

Spencer drove to the hospital, and I had a map of the city in my lap. "According to the locations of the other murders, the pattern seems to be forming a circle. It seems too obvious that he'd be located somewhere in the center of it, don't you think?"

He glanced at the map quickly while driving and then looked back at the road. "It's possible he doesn't know that he's doing it."

I scoffed. "Well then that's a pretty big coincidence, which is something I really don't believe in."

He smiled; I quickly realized the two of us had been making each other do that a lot lately. We pulled into the hospital parking lot and let a valet take the car to get parked. "Wait a second," I said. "Do we know the boy's name?"

Spencer took a peek at the file he was holding. "Jimmy Collins, son of Debra and Jonathon."

I nodded as we walked up to the front desk of the hospital. "Where can we find the room of Jimmy Collins?"

A heavy-set, red haired woman in a nurse's uniform adjusted her glasses and looked up the name on her computer. "He just went into recovery; room 314."

I smiled. "Thank you." Spencer and I walked quickly to the room. I knocked on the door, and a nurse opened it. "Hi," I said, holding up my badge. "We're with the FBI, can we talk to Jimmy?"

She glanced at the badge and looked back at me. "Of course, but not for long. He needs to rest."

Spencer nodded. "We understand. We just have a few questions for him."

The nurse walked out and shut the door after we were in the room. The boy, Jimmy, had a handheld videogame with him, probably given by the nurse. I felt bad. He had no one here for him. "Hi Jimmy, do you know who I am?"

He looked up at me and didn't say anything, but nodded. "You helped me breathe," he muttered.

I breathed in and swallowed. "Yes, and we need to ask you a few questions. Do you remember what happened?"

Again, he nodded, but didn't elaborate.

"Can you tell us?" Spencer pressed on, gently.

Jimmy didn't look up at us. "We were eating, and a man just came in the house. He hit Mommy, then Daddy, until they didn't hit back. He looked at me and started hitting me too. I bit him…" he trailed off. "I only remember seeing you then."

It was such a quick explanation; I was surprised he cooperated so fast. "Can you tell us what he looked like?"

Jimmy paused to think. "He had dark hair and a mustache and beard. He was tall."

It was hardly a description; any man could look tall to a six-year-old boy. "Do you know anything else? Anything specific? Eye color, or something?"

He thought again, and this time he didn't look up at Spencer or me. "He had a black mark on his hand," he said. "It was the black shape on a card."

"Black shape on a card? Like, a club? Or a spade?" I quickly rephrased my question to fit six year old language. "The one that looks like a clover? Or the one that looks like an upside-down heart?"

He nodded. "The upside-down heart."

I smiled. "That's perfect, Jimmy. That's great. You should get some rest, alright?"

Jimmy nodded, his mouth never moving from the constant frown on his face. "What do I do now?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

He looked away. "My mom and dad are gone… What do I do?"

I looked up at Spencer, who didn't say anything and also didn't look back at me. On the table next to Jimmy, I spotted a pen and paper. I ripped off a piece of the notepad paper. "Listen, Jimmy, I can't promise anything right now, but if you ever need anything, call this number. Alright?" I showed him the piece of paper with my cell phone number written on it.

He nodded and took it. I felt the lump in my throat again as his small fingers wrapped around it. "You'll answer?"

I smiled and took his hand. "I promise I will."