Violet arrives home to an empty house.

She locks the door and resets the alarm. It's like a reflex, she's been doing it since she can remember.

She grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and an apple from the island before making her way to the couch.

"Hey Sergio," she murmurs, as the cat hops up beside her to be cuddled. "And how was your day?"

Sergio replies with a meow.

"Oh yeah?" Violet replies. "The entire day?"

He meows again.

"On my bed, huh? You lucky little guy."

She pets him and he settles into her lap, purring.

She flips on the TV and starts pulling homework out of her bag.


The trapdoor is obviously meant to be hidden, but Sean didn't cover it well enough with the plywood.

Derek swings it open, revealing a ladder.

They look at each other, share a look, and then Derek begins to climb down.

Outside, Emily can hear the sound of the rest of the BAU arriving, with the police.

"Guys?"

Emily sticks her outside the shed. "JJ. Over here."

"Back here!" she calls behind her, into the house.

She jogs over to the shed.

"What do you have?"

"We're about to find out," Emily replies, dropping her gaze with JJ's, to the entrance to the hidden room.

They climb down after Gideon, flashlights out and leading their way.

Their eyes scour every inch of the place as soon as they set foot in it.

"Look," JJ says, bending down to pick up a bracelet with her gloved hand. "Melody Brown's mother said she was wearing a bracelet."

She pulls a little bag out of her pocket and drops the bracelet inside.

They continue on, but are stopped short, when another door blocks their way.

"Is this throughout the entire backyard?" Emily says.

"It's gotta be," Derek replies. "And it's been here for awhile. Look at this doorknob."

The knob is outdated, maybe from the '80s.

They try it, but it's locked, not surprisingly.

A few kicks from Derek and it finally gives.

The room is so big that the beams of their flashlights don't even reach a wall.

They hear Hotch and Reid arrive behind them, coming through the door silently.

"Sean Masterson?" Derek calls.

Silence.

"Cassie?" JJ calls.

Silence.

They start following the walls, trying to see something.

They hear something move and their guns and lights move almost together to shine towards a corner.

Then, suddenly, there's light. A lamp in the corner, beside a bed. It doesn't light up the entire underground room, but it allows them to see Sean Masterson, holding a knife to Cassie Sharp's throat.

"Put the knife down, Sean," Derek orders.

Sean breathes heavily, his grip on the terrified teenager not budging. Her mouth is taped shut and tears stream from her eyes.

"You don't have to hurt her, Sean," Emily calls out.

"She's not doing it right!" Sean barks, and then blinks rapidly, looking extremely agitated.

"What's that?" Derek asks.

"She's—she's different. Rebecca would never swear at me. Never."

"Rebecca died 17 years ago, Sean," Hotch replies. "Trying to replace her will never get you anywhere."

Sean looks confused as he frowns at them. He raises the hand with the knife to wipe the back of his hand across his sweating forehead.

"No," he mutters. "No. She just fell. It was an accident, but she's okay."

"Sean. Let the girl go," Derek orders.

"She's supposed to come home from school, and—and we eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches. That's what we do," he says, his speech rushed and panicky. "But she won't do it! She won't eat it!"

"That's because she can't, Sean," JJ replies. "The girl you're holding is named Cassie. She's 13 years old. She can't eat the peanut butter because she's allergic to peanuts."

Sean stares at JJ as through this is preposterous.

"What? Don't be silly. Rebecca doesn't have allergies. And she's 11. She's 11."

"Just put down the knife, man, and we can talk about this," Derek says.

"M-m…Mom says it just takes time. She hit her head, so she forgot some things. But she'll remember," Sean nods rapidly. "She'll remember."

The team maintains their positions, each gun locked on Sean.

"Maybe she'll remember if she gets some sleep," Reid speaks up. "I bet she's really tired, Sean. She just needs to rest."

Sean considers this and then nods a few times, rapid and short. "Yeah. Mom says she needs her rest. Mom always said that."

"Okay, so let's go put Rebecca to bed," Reid says calmly. "Her bed's all ready upstairs, and I bet she's really tired."

Sean rubs his forehead again, debating this.

"No," he shakes his head. "This is where we have to keep Rebecca when she misbehaves, when she doesn't listen. This is what we have to do now. The accident hurt her head, so she has to come here when she's bad."

"I'm sure Rebecca didn't mean to misbehave," Emily says. "I bet she's really sorry she upset you, and she just wants to get some sleep now because she's tired. I bet she just has a headache and it's making her cranky."

Sean considers this. "Headaches give her a bad mood," he nods. "She needs medicine and some warm milk. That's what Mom gives us."

"Okay, well let's go inside and get her some," Emily replies.

She slowly holsters her gun and then holds her empty hands up.

"Let's take Rebecca inside and get her some medicine and warm milk."

She slowly steps towards Sean. His anxiety has made him sweaty and flustered. Emily glances for a second into Cassie's eyes, and immediately wishes she hadn't. The look in her eyes is something that she hates having to see.

She holds her arms out slightly towards Sean and Cassie as she moves forward.

"Come on," she murmurs gently.

Sean rubs his forehead again, and as he does, his other hand comes up, so his entire head is wrapped in his palms.

As soon as that arm is off of Cassie, Emily reaches out and snags her away.

The team is poised for Sean to lunge towards Emily. They hate it, but they know they'll have to shoot him if he does.

Instead, he sinks to the earthen floor and begins rocking.

When Derek reaches him, he grabs the knife and immediately cuffs Sean.


Emily waits with Cassie as a paramedic looks at her. Her mother is on the way but Emily knows she can't leave the girl alone. She's been shaking ever since Emily grabbed her away from Sean.

"There are more," Cassie says, her voice hollowed by her tears. She raises her blue eyes to meet Emily's, and all Emily sees is the exact same pair of eyes she looked into this morning.

"What?"

"There are more girls," she repeats. "But they're all dead."

Emily frowns, taking in this information.

"That's what the room is for," Cassie tells her. "That's where they stay."

A moment later, Erin Sharp is rushing up to them, hugging her daughter and crying.

Emily steps away to give them space.

She walks over to where Hotch is talking to the chief of police.

"We need to get a team down in that room," she tells him.

He waits for her to continue.

"I think that's where he buries them."


What they find in the underground room is worse than any of them expected.

Along with the remains of the four other girls, are the skeletons of 12 others.

With Penelope's digging and Reid's quick mind, they discover that the Masterson's have been trying to "replace" Rebecca ever since she died.

Twelve young girls went missing from 1997 to 2008, each of them taken on November 5th — the day that Rebecca died.

Altogether, 17 girls have been taken, and only Cassie Sharp escaped death.

After Sean's mother died, the heaviest of his grief shifted to the memory of his mother, and he took over the work that his parents had been doing. Every year, a new Rebecca was taken, and within a few months, she was deemed a fraud and disposed of. All of them in the underground room.


On the plane ride back to Virginia, the team is quiet as they think about everything that happened.

"I guess the only silver lining is all of those parents who get closure," Derek murmurs.

Emily is silent. All she wants is to get home. She just needs to hold Violet.

"Sixteen girls," JJ says softly. She shakes her head. "And all this time, no one noticed that Sean was so unstable?"

"After his parents died, he just lived in that house. Didn't have to work, didn't have to see anyone," Hotch replies. "People only thought he was at work because he was coming and going rarely and at odd hours."

"It's unbelievable," JJ says.

"It's actually pretty amazing that he's gone this long, with that kind of mental illness," Reid speaks up. "But he spent so long knowing that his parents were doing that, so when they were gone, he just went into a sort of lapse. He went through the motions, came across as awkward and quiet, but still appearing fine."

The team sinks into a silence as the plane races towards Virginia.


It's a short flight, thankfully, and Emily barely says a word as she stops at her desk before heading for the door.

"Prentiss," Derek catches up to her in the elevator. "Hey."

She refuses to look at him as the elevator doors close.

"Rough day," he says quietly, knowing.

She nods, still not making eye contact. Her eyes are almost swimming and she won't let him see that.

"Yeah," she replies.

The elevator opens and they step out.

Derek reaches out and squeezes her arm.

"Get some rest," he says. "You saved a life today."

She attempts a small smile as she walks to her car.


It's past midnight by the time she pulls into the underground lot. She looks in the rearview mirror and closes her eyes slowly when she sees her red eyes and the mascara under her bottom lashes.

She hardly ever cries, but today it had to happen. Luckily she held off until she was out of the Quantico parking lot.

She knows Violet won't be awake but she won't walk into the loft looking like this.

She sweeps a tissue underneath her eyes and blinks until the tears disappear.


She glances in Violet's room, and the bed is still made. She walks into hers and feels every part of her body release some of the tension it's been holding all day. She watched a woman almost lose her baby today, but Emily's baby is right here, curled into Emily's bed with the blankets kicked off and her skinny legs taking up all the room.

She kicks off her boots and climbs into bed without even changing into pyjamas.

Facing Violet, she reaches out and smooths a lock of hair back from her face. She runs her thumb down the porcelain skin of her cheek, not wanting to wake her but unable to shake the need to gather Violet in her arms.

Violet's lashes move and her eyes barely open.

"Hi," she whispers, still half-asleep.

"Hi baby," Emily replies, her eyes filling. "Go back to sleep."

Violet snuggles into her mother and Emily wraps her in her arms, pressing her lips to Violet's forehead.

"I love you," she murmurs.

"Mmm mm," Violet mumbles.

Emily smiles and takes a deep breath, all of the anxiety and fear seeping from her body.