A/N: Okay so this is my first CM story, so please be kind! I'm sorry if this chapter seems to not be going anywhere, but I assure you, it's worth reading (hopefully)! Since I am no genius, I will try and pretend that I am.

This is going to be a story featuring everyone, but with the focus on Emily. It takes place anywhere during season 2,3,4 or 5. You pick.

Slight Prentiss/Morgan pairing later on.

So please review, follow, like, whatever y'all do, I'd appreciate it SO much!

DISCLAIMER: Sadly, I do not own Criminal Minds, and I think I should accept that already

CHAPTER ONE

Achievement is not always success while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances- Orison Swett Maden

Emily Prentiss was not one to question her decisions. But now, her hands tied behind her back, feet tied to the chair she was sitting on, her whole body feeling tired, weak and aching, she couldn't help herself wonder, if it had been the best of ideas to walk around alone, with a sadistic killer on the spree.

She let out a moan as she shifted in her seat. Every damned part of her body hurt. She tried to think, to profile this guy who had taken her. But, her head seemed oddly slow, and as much as she wanted it, she couldn't get her thoughts running. She remembered getting out of her car to check something, and then, someone must have walked up to her from behind -as she didn't see anyone, and, by the feeling of her body, they tased her. Well, this wasn't doing her anything good, so, she shook her head and opened her eyes.

Obviously, she was in a basement. The only window she could see from her highly restricted seat in the middle of the room, was high up on the wall, close to the sealing and very small. A small amount of light sought it's way in to the room, which wasn't light up by anything else. There wasn't much light, only enough to let Emily see.

The walls of the room she was in were completely bare and gray, the floor was covered by a thin layer of dust, which thickened closer to the walls. But where she sat there was no dust to be seen, telling her this room was used often. Well, not often, but often to do things like tie somebody up and let them sit in the middle of the room. There were almost no furniture in the room (except for the damned chair she was stuck on), but a chair similar to hers in front of her, next to a camera, that only hours ago had shoot some kind of footage of her, and had been sent to the BAU. But Emily was unaware of that, in fact, she had no recollection of even being placed in the room. So, all she could do now, was to do her best in profiling the guy and wishing, hoping that her teammates, her family from the BAU, would find her.

One week ago.

"We have a case" Jennifer Jareau's voice echoed through the bullpen filled with working agents. Emily looked tiredly up from the files that were scattered all across her desk. Even after two steaming cups of coffee, she wasn't much of a morning person. She saw a glimpse of JJ and Penelope Garcia entering the briefing-room. Sighing, Emily quickly gathered her belongings and stood slowly up.

"Whoa, all that excitement! Control yourself girl!" Derek Morgan teased her as he rose to walk with her.

"I'm sorry, I'm just really tired." Emily smiled half-heartedly. "That last case was really tough"

"It was on all of us" Morgan said, a little less cheerily. "But we caught him, and he's behind bars now"

"I know." Emily said.

JJ waited until everyone was seated until she began with the briefing (slightly late since Garcia had seen it appropriate to publicly put her opinion on the street about how hot Morgan looked, and after that she fussed a bit over the fact that Emily looked dreadful, which Emily hastily brushed away saying she was a bit tired).

"Seven bodies, all women, 25 to 55-" JJ clicked on the remote, showing seven bodies on the big screen, all with severe bruising, and blood all over them. "-the first one, Tracey Gibbons, was found by a couple who were out hiking with their dog. The dog started barking and digging, and well, there we have our first victim"

"Must've been a nice hike" Rossi exclaimed, the corners of his mouth turned upwards.

"And the rest were found how?" Reid asked.

"The rest were laying within a ten miles radius of the first one" JJ answered.

"So our Unsub most definitely knows the woods, he's probably grown up around there" Emily said, staring at the open case-file in front of her.

"And another woman has been abducted from Utah two days ago" JJ sighed.

"And how were they killed?" Morgan questioned.

"All were killed differently, the first two victims were shot in the head, the next two were hit in the head, the two after that were strangled and the last one was drowned"

"Two, two, two and one. Were going to have another victim" Reid counted.

"Garcia, run a back-ground check on all the victims and see if there's anything that sticks out to you and crosscheck them and see if they have anything in comeon" Hotch instructed the spot of colors that was Garcia.

"Aye aye captain!" Garcia honored Hotch, which only managed to get him looking grumpier than usual.

"I guess we're going to Wyoming!" Morgan said enthusiastically, although the circumstances of their visit wasn't the most delightful.

"Wheels up in thirty" Hotch said and closed his file in front of him.

"Hey, you sure you're okay?" Morgan's voice waked Emily up from her reveries as he sat down in front of her in the plane.

"Yeah, I'm fine" She said lamely and tried to smile, which wasn't too convincing for her own taste, yet along for another profiler.

"Something's bugging you Prentiss" It wasn't a question. "Spit it out"

"Morgan, I told you, I'm just tired. Stop nagging!" Emily snapped.

Morgan looked momentarily taken aback, chock visible for a second in his chocolate-brown eyes.

"Fine. Have it your way" He threw his hands up in the air in defeat and returned to the other agents in the front.

Emily sighed. She hadn't meant to snap like that; it wasn't like her. She was good, and always had been good, at compartmentalizing. It was one of the few things her mother had taught her. Never show your true emotions, it only makes you weak and vulnerable. Usually the cases didn't affect Emily too much, which in the beginning of her career in the BAU had surprised her colleagues, she was supposed to have been a greeny in the field, having only worked at a desk before. But, Emily had, after all, been an Interpol- and CIA-agent, even though she usually never thought about those parts of her life, and she had never, ever planned on telling her team about it. Well, yes, maybe eventually, but not yet, anyways.

But something about this case gave her a bad feeling. And usually, her 'bad feelings' about something, led to bad things happening.

Now trying to put that feeling in her cut away, she stood up and joined the rest of the team in the front to do their usual splitting of the tasks when they got to Wyoming.

"...Prentiss and Rossi, you will study victim number 3 and 4's houses. See what you can find there. JJ and Morgan, you'll take number 1 and 2 while me and Reid will take number 5, 6 and 7" Hotch instructed his team.

They had split the victims up based on where they lived. Since the Unsub had abducted all the women from outside Wyoming, in fact from all of the six states surrounding Wyoming (one from Montana, one from South Dakota, one from Nebraska, two from Colorado, one from Utah and one from Idaho), it was easier to split up and look at the crime-scene pictures (they usually visited the crime-scenes, but it would take too much time to do that now, so they'd have to settle for pictures. It wasn't as efficient as visiting them, but it had to be good enough).

The plane hit ground in Wyoming and six tired agents made their way to the police office in Cheyenne. A ragged looking police officer shook hands with Hotch and nodded to the other agents.

"You can use this room, it's the best we've got" He showed them a room that was a little isolated from the rest of the office.

"Thank you, it'll be great" Hotch nodded appreciatively and led the rest of the team towards the room. Murmurs, whispers and suspicious, and some rather filthy looks followed them as they walked past the employees at Cheyenne police department. While it was normal local cops did not appreciate the FBI working on their cases, Emily felt the hair on her neck rise; these looks were worse than the ones they usually got.

The team went their own ways with their partner ones they got their pictures. Emily and Rossi sat down in a small empty room they found in the police station.

"Looks like this guy has a lot of anger" Rossi stated the obvious. The pictures showed what ones was a cozy, normal American house, that was now totally destroyed; the furniture was thrown all over the place and picture frames were broken.

"So I think we can safely assume he was at the victim's houses" Emily nodded. "But how did he pick exactly these women? I mean, they have nice houses, they have a good job, but they do not have a husband or kids. Is he punishing them for that?"

"No..." Rossi said slowly. "If we follow your thought on the jobs, we can see that they all worked for the government. There we have something in common"

They continued studying the pictures for an hour or so, but slowly running out of ideas. That's when they thought they ought to check on the others. Like victim number 3 and 4, the other victim's houses were completely destroyed, and the others had also come to the conclusion that the killer had a lot of anger towards the women due to their jobs. All of them were hard-working, with a good job, they were all on top of the company or whatever was their job -and they all worked for the government. After another couple of hours bickering about the M.O, the Unsub, the victims and their jobs, everyone were getting frustrated and they weren't getting anywhere, so Hotch wisely encouraged everyone to take a brake.

At exactly that moment, the Unsub decided Kelly Marshaw from Utah was no fun anymore.

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