Author's Note: I couldn't help myself. I needed to write just one Criminal Minds fanfiction to make myself feel better now that summer vacations started and I'm still blocked on all my other fictions.
Since this one is almost nearly finished anyway (though I'll be posting it in intervals) it will actually be completed. XD
Sorry for the filler chapter, the real fun will start a little later. Hope you enjoy!
Please rate & review. I like to know if I'm doing well (or not).
Chapter One
Albemarle, North Carolina
If there was one place that Evangeline wanted to be at the present moment, it was not here. Not at the dinner table with this man. For one thing, she hated spinach. And she was starting to miss doing normal things, like going to school.
The masked man looked up from his dinner, narrowing his dark eyes at her. The young girl had not moved to eat anything in the entire time they had been at the table. Evangeline would have tried if her stomach hadn't been upset.
"Eva, sweetie, you need to eat. You don't want to make big brother feed you, do you?" he encouraged, placing another forkful in his mouth.
Fear was a terrible enemy and the little girl failed at pushing her's back. Her lip started quivering. Tears followed moments later.
"Stop it!" the man snapped.
His anger only made the ten-year-old sob louder. Within her cries, he could just barely make out words like 'Daddy' and 'Save me'. The man slammed his fists down on the table, startling the girl into momentary silence. A few seconds later he stomped off into the kitchen.
Alone for the first time, the little girl looked around with wide eyes. This place was so unfamiliar to her. The tears started to fall again as she remembered the terrible emptiness inside of her.
She vaguely acknowledged the presence behind her before something wrapped itself around her neck. "Mommy!" she cried aloud before she started struggling for breath. A moment later, she was silent.
"I'm sorry, I-I had to," the masked man muttered as the lifeless body sank to the floor,
He bent down and wiped a gentle hand across the angelic face.
"Please don't cry," he urged, "Big brother is here protect you,"
"True remorse is never just a regret over consequence; it is a regret over motive."
- Mignon McLaughlin
"The media calls him Big Brother,"
Morgan looked at J. J. with incredulity in his eyes. He chuckled to himself. "Seriously?" Isn't that supposed to be the government?" he teased.
The blonde-haired woman turned her head to glare at him. She continued passing out the files to the other team members. Each popped open the seals and pulled out the pictures and papers within.
J. J. returned to her seat, her stomach rolling a little when she remembered she was on a plane. She watched as Morgan made the connection in his head when he saw a picture from the crime scene. The man frowned, staring at the gory picture.
"Your son has judged you unfit," he muttered aloud. The words were carved into the naked bodies of two adults positioned beside each other so that the message was easy to read.
He looked up at the others. "Parenticide?" he inquired.
Aaron Hotchner shook his head as he spread three nearly identical photos out on a small pullout table. The other team members leaned forward to see. From a far off glance, they looked exactly the same. Closer you could tell that the bodies were different. Each picture of another murdered family.
"Three different families, the Jones, the Walkers and the Yates," he began, his face twisted in a sour grimace as he pointed to each picture respectively.
"Each family had only one child, who incidentally all go missing after their parents' deaths…,"
He paused mid-sentence to shuffle through his papers to produce two more crime scene pictures. He laid these out on the table as well, covering up the original three. "They're eventually found dead a few days later,"
Each member took a moment to look closely at the crime scene pictures. None of them could deny that they all felt a little weirded out by the respectful, almost affectionate placement of the children's bodies in relation to the gruesome slaughter of the parents. Looking up from the picture of Evangeline Jones, Gideon continued to fill in the rest of the information.
"The Yates family was found murdered two days ago. Their eleven-year-old daughter Dawn is still missing," he explained.
Everyone exchanged worried glances with each other as they realized how rushed they were going to be to make a profile. At least if they didn't want another murdered kid in their files.
"How long does she have?" Prentiss asked from where she had sat quietly for most of the flight.
Gideon shrugged. "The coroner said that he could trace Evangeline's time of death to only a day after her family's, but Matthew was alive for at least an entire week before he was killed,"
There was nothing but the sound of the wind outside the plane and the roaring of the engines as the team pondered on the terrible outcome of an unpredictable UnSub. Suddenly, Reid looked up from the file he was reading on one of the victims.
"It's their behavior, the children's…," he stated, "It decides how long they're kept alive,"
"You mean, how much they resisted being kidnapped?" asked Morgan.
The team's resident genius nodded slowly. He was pondering on his own thoughts, looking for any flaws in his theory. "He's looking for someone to play into his fantasy,"
As a father Hotch could see almost instantly what kind of fantasy could be playing out in the UnSub's head. It made him sick just thinking about it. He felt someone staring at him and looked up. It was Gideon. The man knew what Hotch had been thinking; he turned to the others and took in their cheerless expressions.
"We need to prepare for what we might find," he warned, "Dawn might already be dead,"
Everyone nodded slowly, each secretly hoping that there might be some miracle that saved the little girl. Nevertheless, miracles in their line of work were few and far between. None of them could rely on it.
She hadn't stopped to put on shoes, she had not had time to stop and find them. Now her feet were starting to hurt. Stopping wasn't really on the little girl's list of plans. She had to keep going or he might catch up with her. There was no telling how long he would be asleep.
It was good that she hadn't taken a single dose of Ritalin since all of this had started. Without her medication she was much more aware of everything around her, she could keep up with everything. It also meant she had much more energy.
Up ahead she saw a house with the light still on. Trusting someone was the last thing she was ready to do right now, but she realized she really had no choice. Unless she was up for running a few more miles. Her legs protested at the thought.
The young girl paused at the side of the road, looking both ways before she crossed. It wouldn't do for her to get hit by a car now, not after all she had been through. Slamming her fist against the wooden door, the girl suddenly realized how exhausted she was.
She nearly cried out when the door finally flew open and she couldn't push back the sudden images of her dead family that flashed through her head. Knees failing, she collapsed, on the doorstep of some stranger.
The stranger sounded worried as she called for her husband. The little girl's shirt was covered in blood, but it did not look to be her own. She bent down and tried to comfort the gasping girl. Her lungs felt like they were being squeezed, she couldn't breathe.
"Where are your parents?" the woman asked her just as her husband appeared behind her.
Through a series of strangled breaths the little girl choked out, "Can't breathe, inhaler…"
Her husband disappeared hurriedly into the living room and returned with a child's inhaler. Both of the adults knew better than to give their child's medication to someone else, but this was an emergency. It was miraculous that they even had an inhaler at all since the girl's asthma seemed severe.
The little girl shrunk back at the very shadow of the man. Anyone that tall was foreboding to her at the moment. The strange woman signaled her husband to give them some room. He backed away slowly. Meanwhile the little girl tried to take a deep breath and failed, clawing at her neck as if something was choking her.
Gently, the woman pressed the inhaler into the girl's mouth, coaxing her to take a deep breath. The girl complied, her eyes puffy with frightened tears. The medication exited the in its aerosol form and with another puff, the girl began to feel her lungs release.
"Can you tell us your name, sweetheart?" the woman inquired softly when the girl's breathing returned to normal.
The young girl sniffled and tried to keep from sobbing as she hoarsely answered, "Dawn…Dawn Yates,"
Just one look to her husband and the woman confirmed the suspicion. He disappeared from her vision to call the police as the woman gathered the little girl into her arms.
"Everything's going to be okay," she promised, "You're safe now,"