Chapter 2
Spencer was covertly watching the couple on his sofa when he noticed that quite suddenly her tears didn't so much trail off as abruptly stop as her back stiffened and her head came up. He watched as the other two men's attitude subtly changed towards the young woman as she stood up and turned to face him. She absently wiped the tears away from her face and looked right at him. Her eyes had turned a dark, almost black, brown colour and she regarded him with a neutral expression.
"Hello, Dr. Reid." She greeted in an emotionless voice and, by the way her mouth quirked into a wry smile; he hadn't quite covered his shock at this change in her behaviour.
"Hello." He greeted carefully. He was watching her with a hopefully neutral expression of his own. A genuine smile curved her lips, but didn't reach her eyes. Those stayed emotionless and he carefully schooled his expression into one that he had used in his previous job as a profiler. He took a stab in the dark with his next question.
"May I know to whom I am speaking with?"
He watched as her eyebrows crept up in admiration and he ignored the reactions of the other two men. His focus solely on the strange young woman in front of him.
"You may call me Ko. I'm impressed. Not many people can pick up on these sorts of changes. Most just put the changes in behaviour down to mood swings. But then, you're not like most people, are you, Doctor?"
Spencer's own lips quirked into his own smile as he picked up on her obvious intelligence. "No. I'm not. May I ask why I'm speaking with you?"
"To understand the upcoming events and behaviours, you will need to know what happened in the past and since both James and Remy trust you implicitly, then I shall as well. Just know that the only reason why I'm Out is to explain things that the others are unable to. I generally work behind the scenes as it were. I let the others know what they need to so that they can function somewhat normally without letting anyone know the true extant of our problems."
"So, you're the one that remembers everything." He guessed as he settled back in his chair.
"Yes."
"How many others are there?" He asked, curious.
"Seven including myself."
He raised an eyebrow in surprise at the answer. "Why so many?" He blurted out before he could stop himself. In all his years as a profiler he had only met two other D.I.D people. One of them had three while the other only had two.
Ko raised an eyebrow at the rudeness of the question and replied "The answer to that question is not relevant to this conversation."
Spencer flushed slightly at the rebuke. "That was very rude of me. I apologize. Sometimes I say things without thinking first."
She made a small, noncommittal sound and continued. "You will meet all but one of the others during the course of this meeting and you will never speak with me again."
He frowned and asked "How many here know about this…..situation?"
"Three including you. Four people total in our life." She replied and then tilted her head slightly as if she were listening to something only she could hear. "One other thing that you need to know. The man being let out on parole is the father of the body. The fact that he is being let out on parole is distressing to most of them and enraging both the protector and the one whose job it is to feel the murderous rage. Know that the others are capable of feeling anger as well as all other emotions, but some of them, out of necessity, feel one particular emotion more strongly than the others."
"May I ask what he went to prison for?"
"He killed his wife in front of some of us and then he tried to kill us. I'm the one that supplied the necessary information to the person who was Out to relay to the police and, then later, to the judge and jury at the trial."
Spencer nodded his head in understanding. The judge and jury wouldn't have been suspicious if the person on the stand answered question with a complete lack of emotion.
She turned back to face the feral. "James, you need to watch some of the others very carefully. The fetus is in danger right now and if they were to miscarry it could prove to be very disastrous and place all of us in a great deal of danger. I will do what I can to mitigate the fallout if it should happen, but I don't determine who is Out at any given time."
Logan nodded in acknowledgement as he got up and went to leave to get everyone something to drink. When he opened the door, he came face to face with Scott.
