A/N: Hi everyone! I know, it took me a while to get this up! I'm yet to successfully climb out from under a bigpile of assignments :(

But anyway, it's finally here! Chapter 2! I decided to not really show the entire case, otherwise it would have taken me longer to finish this story. Anyway, a bit of a H/P interaction here, not much, but there will be more later on. And I like to keep things realistic. Happy reading! and reviewing! :) Rated T for a couple of bad-ish words.

Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds.


CHAPTER 2:


14th February 2006

The lunch bell rang at Newington High school and a young, timid boy opens his locker to find the Valentine's Day card he had made for a Serena Bale ripped to into small pieces. Breathing heavily and adjusting his thick rimmed glasses, he picked up one of the larger pieces. The pink-coloured paper read:

"DEAR CORBETT,

BITE ME."

Serena, appearing behind him with a group of snickering followers began to taunt the teenager with names before another group of alpha-males started, "Well would you look at that, Corb's valentine rejected him!"

"AWWW CORB, IT'S OKAY! YOU CAN BE MY VALTENTINE!" said another, while the rest all laughed and cheered, "And we could watch a movie under the stars and later you can walk me to my doorstep. You might even get luck-"

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT THE HELL UP!" A sudden burst of anger overwhelmed Corbett and he spun around launching a book at the crowd.

They jumped. "Alright, alright," they said, the mockery died down and they began to walk away, "freak."

The young boy clenched his fists and took a deep, slow breath. He picked up the book, stored it and silently walked away, head down.


The case had proven to be a hard one, but at least now they had a suspect.

Corbett Bass. Black hair, blue eyes, 21 years old and a cashier at Dome, a café which was located about 20 minutes from where the last victim lived. He had also lost his place at Yale about a month ago.

Unfortunately though, the last victim had not been Elizabeth Rogers, but Serena Bale. It had taken the team a week and a half to find him, and another woman had fallen victim because of it.

Serena Bale: 22 years old, blonde hair, green eyes, aspiring actress.

These thoughts ran through Hotch's mind as he made his way through the State Police Department's corridor.


Corbett Bass, young and blue-eyed, sat in the interrogation room with Reid, who was sitting across from him, and Rossi, standing.

Rossi slammed down a photo of a bloody Elizabeth on the table.

"I suppose you know who she is," he said, more of a statement then a question.

"I have no idea," the suspect replied.

"But you do know who these women are," Rossi lined up two more photos; Katherine Davis and Serena Bale. "You went to school with them."

Bass flinched, "And so did about 900 other kids."

"Not when they both went to different schools."

"I moved around a bit as a kid."

"It must have been hard, moving so often as a teenager, no?" said Rossi, "And what about her?" he placed the last photo of Heidi McBride down, whom they knew he had attended college with.

Reid began with clearing his throat, clearly uncomfortable with the tension Rossi was creating, "It says here you suffered severe anxiety as a teenager."

"Tell me, why was it that you moved?" continued Rossi, knowingly.

Bass crossed his arms defensively, "I was bullied, so what?"

"Did you tell anyone about it? A teacher maybe?" asked Reid.

He snorted "Like they could do anything about it."

"They can only hurt you if you're afraid to ask for help."

"I did ask. Apparently the only way to help me was to send me off to another school... Like that made any difference."


Hotch, unsuspecting of finding Emily watching the interrogation, walked inside the small room on the other side of the two-way mirror.

"I was beginning to think you were avoiding me," Emily smiled, her dark eyes looking straight into his. Hotch cleared his throat and quickly focused his vision on Bass and the two agents with him.

During that week, Emily had been paired up mostly with Morgan. Hotch hadn't purposely been trying to avoid her; he just hadn't had much time to think about what had happened between them because of the case. Now that he managed to find her alone, he felt blood quickly rush to his face. He couldn't bear to let her see that, so he folded his arms and said nothing, hearing a sigh come from her.

Emily turned her attention back to the scene on the other side of the room. Her stomach was doing somersaults. She knew what she wanted, but was enough of a realist to know it was never going to happen. Why does it have to be so awkward? She was determined to quit the silence, "so, you think he's our unsub?"

"I know he's our unsub," he replied.

Emily nodded and they continued to watch in silence. Hotch sighed, what was wrong with him? "But it doesn't matter what I think," He continued, "If we don't get a confession then we've got nothing but coincidence. And that isn't going to go down well with that lawyer waiting outside."

"Well it's a good thing we have Rossi in there then." She said taking a quick glance at him in her peripheral vision.


"Is that why you murdered Katherine Davis?! Because she bullied you?!" bellowed Rossi.

"No!" Bass was clearly beginning to get frustrated.

"What about the other two victims? Did they bully you too?"

"Look, I didn't kill those women!" He said, breathing rapidly.

"Were you so incapable of defending yourself?"

"And you haven't a shred of evidence to prove it!"

"Were you that much of a freak?!"

"SHUT UP!" he cried, making both Rossi and Reid to draw backwards, "THEY DESERVED IT! They deserved to die…It was them. It was always them," he was whimpering now, "They deserved to die…"

Rossi took a quick look at the glass mirror.


"We've got him," said Emily, both her and Hotch quickly rushing to the door.


"But what about Elizabeth Rogers?" asked Reid, "You had no connection to her. In fact, there was probably little chance you having interacted."

"She doesn't fit. She didn't bully you. So why?" continued Rossi.

"She would have," Bass said, now having composed himself, "Given the chance, back then, she would have. I know she would have. I was only doing to them what the kids they tortured wanted to."


A/N: So again, sorry for this having taken me so long! Hope you guys enjoyed it anyway! I wasn't sure at how well i write case-fics :D Please do leave a review! It'll keep me going as fast as I can. And yes, I do have another chapter to go!

Georrgia :D