/

The ground slid beneath her feet as she ran. Sometimes it was the snow and sometimes it was loose rocks. She didn't stumble though. Not once did she give herself time to fall.

She had seen pictures of them. Her father showed her in one of his books. A helicopter. It was right above her head, blowing dead leaves off of the trees and whipping her hair across her face. The book didn't mention how loud it was-how horribly loud.

Her shoes went deep into some mud that had begun to thaw overnight. They stuck, preventing her from moving forward. She hesitated only a moment before yanking each foot free of its confines and continuing her run across the cold ground with bare feet. It wasn't too bad. At least there weren't any thorns this time of year.

Gray rocks appeared when she got to the clearing by the river. It was the base of the mountain she had climbed with Mr. Barry the week before. They hadn't gone up too high, but she at least knew where to go from there.

The incline was steep and her feet didn't want to find their purchase without the support of the boots she'd been wearing before. Soon, she made it to the cairn-that was what Mr. Barry had called the rocky top of the hill. She caught her breath and wrung her hands in front of her, all the while trying to figure out what to do next.

The helicopter had disappeared when she got near the mountain. It seemed to want to avoid the high trees and rocky cliffs. She smiled with relief when for the first time in what felt like an eternity, there was nothing but silence surrounding her.

Her scream was what ultimately destroyed the calm.

It was brought on when she saw the men. Appearing from behind the rocks and repelling down from the cliffs above. They wore masks and black clothes. Their coats were thick, so she had a hard time determining just how big they are.

When the closest one to her, moved forward to grab her arm, she snatched his hand from the air and twisted it.

His pained shouts almost covered up the bones cracking in her delicate grasp.

As soon as his defense was down, she jabbed the heel of her foot into his hip and then the side of his knee before shoving him hard against a pile of jagged just behind him.

A second man tried to apprehend her, but she wrenched her arm away and jumped up to kick his shoulders with both of her feet. He toppled backwards but before she could do any more harm, a pair of arms wrapped around her waist and yanked her away.

She moved to elbow him in the throat, but felt a sharp sting in the side of her neck. Her body suddenly felt very heavy and her eyelids began to pull shut.

"She's covered in blood."

The shout came from somewhere above her, she didn't have the strength to look for the source.

"Whose is it?"

"It could be any of theirs."

"Let's just get her out of here."

That was the last thing she heard before the darkness consumed her.

/

Reid was placed in charge of reading the files that detailed Molly Prentiss' life leading up to present day. He was the fast reader and his Eidetic Memory ensured that he'd relay the information to his team verbatim.

As he sat in the conference room of the Little Rock Police Station though, he began to regret his current job.

Nothing about this woman's life was easy. From the day she was born, she was burdened with things no child should ever have to face.

But in the long run, it was helping him understand Molly's reasoning. Her rampage, for the lack of a better word, was suddenly a little bit more reasonable. Now he knew why she was able to do what she did and how she was capable of so much more.

And while it gave him plenty of insight, it also terrified him.

This was one of America's most dangerous assets and she had been pushed to her breaking point. How far was this going to go?

/

When they heard the news about Sasha Tychkin, Prentiss, Hotch, and JJ wasted no time. They immediately jumped into one of the two SUV's they'd rented and sped down Interstate 40 before they even had their seatbelts on.

From what they could tell, there were five or six former Red Cards residing in Texas. Given Molly's pattern, she would be heading there next, but they couldn't be positive where her first stop would be.

Morgan and Rossi were going to take the other vehicle and headed towards Van Horn while Hotch's crew went to Skellytown.

Her path could have been starting in the North in Skellytown and working its way down, or she could have gone south from New Mexico to Van Horn. The latter would have been a shorter drive to her next location, but the former would make more sense sequentially-it would have been a straight shot down the giant state from there. Then she would conquer Mexico.

"Just how dangerous is she?" JJ asked from the backseat, glancing up from the file in her lap to look at Emily. "She didn't seem violent at all when we were with her."

Of course, she had seen evidence to the contrary when they wheeled an armless Gusev from the shed in his backyard. But prior to that, Molly had seemed to be just any other mother who was scared for her missing child. Not overly aggressive, but assertive. She wasn't strong-arming the team or insisting that she take the lead, but she was willing to help with whatever needed to be done. If anything, she went above and beyond.

"She's not dangerous at all." Prentiss was chewing on her thumbnail. Hotch had gently pulled the digit away from her teeth when they had just gotten on the interstate, but somehow it had found its way back to its doom. "She's never been dangerous."

"Emily, she's an assassin." Aaron reminded her, taking his eyes from the road just long enough to throw her a leery glance.

He had read what he could from the papers that Reid had printed out before they left the station. Molly had killed more people in two years than he had throughout his entire career. She never used a gun. Of course, she had been issued one and it accompanied her on every mission, but not once did she fire it. She instead preferred knives, blunt instruments, and when all else failed, her own hands.

She killed the people that the government didn't want to deal with. Criminals who were too dangerous-too vile-were assigned to a nineteen year old girl with red braids and a yellow Jansport backpack.

Sure, the Unsubs he dealt with day in and day out were far more vicious than this young woman. They killed, they mutilated, and they were cold blooded. But Molly was given the green light to do what she did.

The government asked...no...They demanded that she be as violent as possible. Don't ask questions. Don't look the family in the eye as you slit dad's throat at the dinner table. Don't take the little girl to the police station after you break mom's neck in at the playground. Do what needs to be done and move on to the next name.

"She's a human being." Emily insisted. "I have seen firsthand that she is human. She did what she was told, just like we do. She knows what she does is wrong, but in the end she did what she had to in order to get by."

"She's not a defense attorney, she's a contract killer." He wanted to laugh at her flippant reply. "I have no doubt that she was manipulated into her career. It's not hard to believe given her background. But we can't overlook what she's done these past few weeks." He gestured to the pile of photos Emily had been flipping through. The men, and now one woman, all cut up and left bleeding and suffering.

Sure, they were all horrendous people with rap sheets as long as his arm, but Molly apprehended them outside of the law. Well, the law he was aware of. Every day he found out something new about the America that was kept from them.

"But they're not dead!" Emily rolled her eyes and shook her head as soon as the words left her mouth. There was a right way and a wrong way to explain things to her dour boss-slash-boyfriend. And she was dancing towards the wrong way. Be a profiler dammit. She scolded herself. Do your job!

She cleared her throat and continued, half turning in her seat so that she could address JJ also. "This woman has been ordered for as long as she can remember to kill. At one point in time, her livelihood depended on it." Prentiss held up the photographs. "But look at these people! Sure, they're dismembered, and that's horrible, but she tied tourniquets on them. She made sure that they didn't die."

"Well, yeah." JJ really wanted to take her friend's side on this, but she felt that she had to point out the obvious. "She wanted them to suffer. All of these people are going to be extradited to their own countries and placed into barbaric prisons. It's cruel."

"It's sadistic." Hotch interjected.

For a moment, Prentiss was at a loss for words. Were these really her two closest friends? Her allies? Why the hell hadn't she gone with Morgan? At least his skepticism didn't stab her in the back. It was expected from him.

"They were bloodthirsty criminals!" She reminded them. "Paul Canelli killed his entire family and burnt their house down because the cops were onto him. Neal Perrigan raped thirteen girls at UCLA and killed four of them. None of them got more than they deserved!"

When she saw Hotch's shoulders relax, she went on. "I'm not trying to justify her actions. But there is no way that we'll save her if we have any doubt in our minds going into it. She's a profiler just like us." She shook her head and bit her lip. "She's grieving and she's not in the right frame of mind, so she's doing what seems right. She needs us to remind her what right actually is. Because I don't think anyone has ever done that for her."

/

Skellytown, Texas

Unlike his fellow Red Cards, William Bowles never changed his name. It was a common enough combination and he'd always figured that he'd be able to lay low with it.

Molly had always referred to him as the simple-minded leprechaun. Partly because he was an absolute nitwit, and also because every time he spoke she was absolutely positive that the Lucky Charms mascot was in their presence.

The lumbering man with graying chestnut hair and a beard to match lumbered through the supermarket with a card filled with beer, chips, and various frozen meals.

One thing all of the Red Cards had in common; a poor diet.

She placed a bag of Bartlett Pears into her basket-she opted not get an actual cart so that she could follow him a little better-and slowly wandered towards the checkouts behind William. Remaining inconspicuous, she got into the line in the lane to the left of his and picked up a magazine.

For a few moments, she feigned interest in Kelly Kashardian (or whatever the hell her name was) and her new kid.

The woman in front of her paid and went on her way, so Molly sidled up and exchanged small talk with the pimpled teen at the register. He wasn't really in the mood to converse, so she took that moment to glance over her shoulder.

William was still two people back in line. Perfect.

Paying for her pears and gum, Molly thanked the cashier and hurried towards the exit. She had parked in the row just behind William, so she wanted to be ready at the wheel when he got out.

/

Somewhere on I-30

Rossi had been able to swallow most of the information he read over on his tablet. Though Molly Briggs' childhood was a tragic one, it was surprisingly not as heart wrenching as others he had seen.

It was when he reached her seventh birthday that he felt his stomach clench.

SERE Training.

He knew that her father, Dominic Briggs, was in the Marines. He knew that he had been discharged due to his mental state. Again, this was all pretty basic history for the family of an Unsub...victim? It was still unclear just what Molly was.

Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. It was the kind of training that would really make or break any soldier-young or old. And though it was far less brutal now than it was then, it was still a painful experience.

When Dominic went through SERE, as stated in his file, he almost lost his mind. For two days, his unit wandered a mountain in the Adirondacks. It had been the dead of winter and starting a fire was next to impossible. Briggs had been 'captured' first and he was subjected to torture by his own commanding officers.

It wasn't until they started lashing him that he gave up the classified information that the entire team had been given before they started the training.

Two weeks later, after multiple breakdowns, he was discharged.

After that, he married his fiancé of three years, Annie. And when she gave birth to their daughter, Dominic immediately moved his tiny family to Iceland.

For years, he filled journal after journal with daily accounts of their lives in the tundra. Most of the entries were inconsequential-"We saw three foxes today", "Molly is finally fitting into the parka that Annie made last winter", "It hasn't snowed in nearly a month", and so forth. But when he got to Molly's sixth year, more was revealed about the reclusive family.

"Barry is finally here. He's going to help make sure that Molly is ready."

"Tomorrow we're taking Molly hunting. It's about time she gets some blood on her hands."

"I let Molly shoot the DS-39 today. I held her in place to keep her from getting knocked down, but the kid's a natural."

A quick Google search on his phone revealed that a DS-39 was an unsuccessful machine gun produced by the Soviets. It had been discontinued in the 1940's. Dave arched an eyebrow and revealed this information to Morgan.

"Yeah, sometimes those are the easiest ones to get." The younger agent said signaling to pull off on the upcoming exit. They were running low on gas.

It wasn't until Derek got out to pump that Rossi got to the part that got his heart racing.

"She did terrible. We found her after less than twenty minutes and Barry broke her with only two shock rounds..."

"...Today the girl was able to evade for three hours, but she didn't last long with the tub treatment. We dunked her fourteen times, no more than thirty seconds each. She should have been better..."

"...We will need to take a break. The girl broke her arm trying to get out of her restraints..."

Dave's skin was beginning to feel clammy.

Once a week. Once a week this child was taken out into the Icelandic Tundra and subjected to the torture that the Military was forced to discontinue due to the psychological trauma it had inflicted on the soldiers. But this little girl who, according to the Polaroid's found stuffed in between the pages of the journals, hadn't even lost all of her teeth was expected to withstand it.

She had been shocked, dunked under icy water repeatedly, lashed, and maimed. Kids were supposed to put Band-Aids over scrapes they get when falling off their bike, not wounds from the small caliber bullets shot at her to build up her resistance.

Nearing the end of his final journal, Briggs finally declares that Molly passed the SERE training. "It took her almost two years, but she's finally worthy of the Briggs name." The sloppy handwriting had scrawled, it was getting smaller to accommodate all of the words he wanted to squeeze into the bottom of the page. "I'm proud to call her my child."

"1988." Dave sighed, pressing the power save button on the tablet and rubbing his eyes.

"What?"

He hadn't even realized that Morgan had gotten back into the car. Glancing his way, the Italian shook his head and squinted back towards the road they were headed back towards.

"1988 was the last time he called her Molly." He clarified. "When she turned seven, she was no longer his daughter. She was his...his soldier." The words left a sour taste in his mouth.

When Derek continued furrow his brows, baffled by the revelation that sounded as though it should have been obvious, Dave decided that it would best if he were brought up to speed.

Outrage was always better when shared with a friend.