"HOTCH! Hotch, snap out of it, man! HOTCH!"

Morgan couldn't watch any more. "Damn it, lady…STOP!"

Mercifully, Aaron lapsed back into the fog of semi-consciousness, mumbling inaudible words that might have been endearments. As his arms fell away from her, Megan went still; even her hand deep inside Hotch's pants no longer moved. Slowly, she withdrew it.

The face she turned toward Morgan and Prentiss did an equally slow crumple. Her brown eyes filled.

"He said 'Haley.' Was…was that his wife? Is that who he's thinking of?"

"Yes." Prentiss whispered the answer. "He loved her very much. Still does. Please don't make him cheat on her. Even if she was the one who left, he's still faithful to her. Please don't take that away from him. Not like this."

Realizing the pathetic picture she must present, Megan wiped at her nose with the back of one hand. Of the conflicting emotions running through her, she chose to go with anger. "How do you know he wouldn't cheat? Hasn't already?" Her salt-stung eyes sharpened. "Did you test him yourself?"

Emily sighed. "No. I wouldn't do that. I know him. Like a brother. He's not the kind of guy who'd step out on his wife. Or anyone he'd given his heart to. He's a good man."

Megan returned her gaze to her prey.

Morgan and Prentiss shared a glance; each seeking confirmation from the other of the tiny ray of hope that might be shining forth. The unsub's look of infinite sadness was at odds with their profile of a force of vengeance who'd gleefully administered poison to unsuspecting victims. And likely watched them gasp out their last as she toasted their deaths with champagne.

Megan gave her head a slow, deliberate shake. "There's no such thing as a good man. Not really. Not when you look beneath the surface."

Morgan added his voice to the mix, speaking with the same, soft persuasiveness Emily had used. "This one is. Even when you dig beneath the surface."

The unsub gave a delicate, derisive snort, lips quirking in a wry slant that said she knew better. "Are you saying he's perfect?" She drew the last word out, lacing it with sarcasm.

"No. He makes mistakes. Everyone does. But his heart's in the right place." Morgan sounded earnest. "He is a good man."

Megan turned her regard back to Hotch, lightly stroking his stomach through the thin cotton of his t-shirt. After a moment she took a deep, shaky breath. Tossing her hair back, she gave the captive agents a calculating look. "Tell you what…Let's play a game." To Prentiss's and Morgan's dismay, her voice turned dangerously silky. "It'll be my version of Truth or Dare. It's a little one-sided compared to the usual way it's played. But this'll be fun, too. And maybe the stakes are a little bit higher, so that'll make it more interesting for all of us."

"Truth or Dare?" Morgan was nervous about games he associated with slumber parties and teenage girls. He was at a disadvantage. Never having participated, he only knew the game by hearsay, and the way the sisters he'd grown up with rolled their eyes and grimaced at its mention.

"Sure," Megan purred. "You know. Only the way we play it, I get to ask all the questions. And if I think you're lying or I just plain don't like the answers you give, I get to do…things…to Aaron."

"Are you sure he's alright?" Derek tried to delay the inevitable. "Why isn't he waking up?"

"Ohhhh." The unsub smoothed Hotch's eyebrows with her thumb. "I wouldn't worry. If what you say is true, it's probably best he stays under for a while yet." Her grin went wicked. " 'Cause if he's really a 'good man,' like y'all say? Then he might not understand some of the things that could happen to him once we start playing."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Rossi and Reid had their hands full fending off rabid reporters and slippery photographers intent on immortalizing the leavings of their unsub's latest hit.

"She's devolving fast." Reid placed himself in front of a camera lens, blocking off the view of a car in the underground garage. The man in the driver's seat was missing a good portion of his head. Spencer didn't want his next of kin seeing it splashed across one of Dallas's local rag sheets.

"Got that right, kid." Rossi managed to quell most of the importunate questions shouted at him with what he thought of as his gansta-look. It would have made a Mafia don proud. It would have made Hotch, master of the lethal glare, proud. And speaking of their Unit Chief…

"Shouldn't the guys be here by now?" Reid's brow creased with concern.

Rossi had the calm of greater experience. "They're going over the penthouse. And Hotch is nothing if not thorough." He shrugged. "Maybe they found something worth pursuing. Anyway, there's nothing they can do here…" He threw a shoulder in front of another intrusive zoom lens. "…except run interference."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

Still, Reid couldn't help the little nugget of newly-formed anxiety rolling around in his stomach.

Rossi breathed a sigh of relief as local law enforcement arrived en masse. Crime techs spilled out of a van, and an added contingent of officers pushed the media back as they began stretching yellow police tape across the garage entrance. Dave always thought the bright, sunny color was so oddly cheerful considering the tape's use.

Freed from their roles of crowd-control, the two agents walked to the victim's car and began profiling it for anything useful.

Rossi sighed again, but this time with resignation. It was a messy, unnecessarily brutal way to dispatch a human being.

He hoped whatever Hotch and the others were doing was less stressful than combing through this death scene.