Chapter 35

Day 09

At the end of the work day they were all exhausted as usual. But they had a couple of hours to settle over bowls of porridge and whatever occupation they chose before lights out. Somewhere Bastian had come up with three notebooks and three pencils. They were bound curiously and across the top, and the paper had a sort of tinny feel and the pencils were triangular with pale green wood, but they worked for putting words on paper. Ladz sniffed and said they were the kind for school children but he was grateful for his just the same. Spencer gave the second to Elena and tucked the third away. He was working on a plan.

Elena used the second notebook to settle on the floor by the bunks with Aviv and Lillit and with Jotir periodically looking over her shoulder started working on an English lesson. Jotir was cleaning his blisters, having been introduced to pot stirring earlier that day, and sorting laundry. Ladz had once again taken up his unlit pipe and with a twinkle of a smile at Spencer pulled something out from where it was hidden in his mattress, a sheet of what might have been cardboard and some kind of small, round objects. These he passed to Spencer to look at. "Elena has teached me." He said. "Do you play?"

Spencer looked at the round objects. The edges had bright colors; these might have been made from some kind of trash. But on the tops were familiar symbols, a knight, a pawn, a bishop. "Taught me." He said. "I do play."

"Taught me, yes. Taught. Excellent." Ladz grinned and started setting up the board.

At the same time Adriana and Kaeg were over with Bastian. She was still upset, and Spencer heard the name Odot once more. Bastian got her calmed down only to look concerned as Kaeg said something and gestured to Lillit. Bastian interrupted Elena and asked her something which got a fierce reply from Aviv which was repressed. Elena turned to Spencer and translated. "He wants to know if we should mark Lillit to protect her from the guards."

"No!" JJ said

Spencer held up a finger to stop her. "Do they get a lot of children in the workhouses?" He asked.

Elena translated and replied. "No. It's rare."

"And do people volunteer to become guards or are they forced?"

"They volunteer."

"Then no, we don't need to worry." Spencer heard JJ's long exhale behind him.

Elena translated this, earning a similar exhale from Aviv. Jotir and Ladz simply accepted this, but Bastian leaned against the bunk with an interested look on his face and asked something long winded. "He said it is your decision, as their clan chief, but he is curious about your reasoning."

"A pedophile, someone who is interested in children like that, isn't going to exile himself to an all-adult environment. They will go where the preferred prey is, a school, a church, a playground. And unless they have that particular desire a sadist will be turned off by the thought of harming a child in that way. Now if she was past puberty we might have to consider it but not at her age. They might harm her to harm us by extension, but not sexually and not based on her looks, so there is no need to disfigure her."

Bastian listened to all of this, nodded with an impressed look on his face, and answered briefly. "Good to know." Elena translated.

"I should have known that." JJ groaned.

"You're still new to profiling." Spencer replied.

"Still."

"You're under a lot of stress."

"That shouldn't matter Spence." She said, tension in her voice. "I can handle myself in the field as well as anyone."

Elena had been translating this for the benefit of the others. Now Jotir spoke up. "He said that one cannot expect a kittah to keep their head in a situation like this. That's why the others have to guide them."

JJ's eyes narrowed. "Guide them? I will have you know that I am a dammed good agent. I know how to handle myself. I don't need anyone to guide me!"

Jotir replied, a look of mild annoyance on his face. "Boin ha'oi va' tiiv la'dia'ti na' niery ha'oi ka'a'v dettisl." He said. "Ya'oi lya'oirvt'n lvieg na' nya'li ema'sti ha'oi nyen zeh."

Elena turned red at that. "Ummm..."

"What. Did. He. Say?" JJ said through her teeth.

"He said you need someone to teach you good manners. You shouldn't speak to those above you that way." Elena said.

"Above me? Above me!" JJ rounded on him. "I will have you know that we believe in equality. No one is above anyone..."

As Spencer watched, Jotir very deliberately got up and turned away from JJ's tirade, a move meant to provoke her. "Ya'oi lii." He said. "Dettisl."

There wasn't time for Elena to translate. JJ caught Jotir by the arm, furious at his casual, clearly offensive dismissal. "Hey!"

In response to this Jotir tried to grab her around the waist. She responded with some Morgan style move that got the brief fight going. But in the end, height, greater muscle mass and military training won out. Before Spencer could even react they ended up on the ground at the end of the row of bunks with Jotir slinging JJ over his lap. Then he landed a solid, heavy swat right upon her bottom. "What the hell!" JJ screeched.

"Ava'ra'kaepi na' ha'ois verg rievis pha's ha'ois a'oinmoisln." Jotir said calmly.

"He said you should apologize to your clan chief for yelling." Elena said, wincing.

"What?" JJ yelled.

Jotir swatted her again. "Atv riest na' daetv ha'ois vreri."

"And learn to mind your place." Elena translated.

"Go to hell!" JJ tried to get free but ended up swatted again.

Spencer's mind had frozen at the first sight of what was going on. Now he realized that he needed to step in. "Okay, I think that..."

"I do not need your help, Spencer!" JJ growled at him. "I can take care of myself!" Jotir swatted her again. "Ow!"

Wait a minute. Spencer considered the situation. She was wearing the heavy jeans she had worn to go out in the woods, and Jotir wasn't hitting her at all hard, at least not for someone used to training with Morgan. "Didn't you tell me back in the cell that you wanted someone to take control of things?"

"What?!"

Spencer turned back to his chess game. "If you want someone to take control you have to be willing to give some up." He moved his piece. "I assume that's why you don't want me involved."

"To you? Ow!"

"Or to Jotir there if you prefer." Ladz moved and he considered his options.

"You have...Ow!... got to be... Ow!... joking!"

"Or Will, Hotch..." Ahh, this move here.

"Just because I am a woman...Ow!...that does not mean...Ow!..."

Everyone else was carefully not paying attention to what was going on. The polite thing seemed to be to ignore it. Even the younger ones were focused on their lesson. "This doesn't have anything to do with gender. As near as I can tell it has to do with personality. Who you want to...to submit to is entirely up to you but you don't seem to be happy with a...more dominant role." Ladz's move was not what an Earth player would do. It was interesting.

"You don't know that! Ow!"

"You told me JJ. You told me back in the cell that you wanted someone to take control and when no one did you had to do it yourself. I know you and Will have been fighting about that, I believe ever since you got back from Afghanistan. You want him to be more decisive around the house, to take control over things and he's not comfortable without your input so he would like you home more. And given that he is not a dominant personality it was probably a problem before the wedding. That might explain your reluctance to marry him before he showed dominance during the bank robbery." He came up with an equally interesting countermove. "I think some of your behavior of late has been a subconscious desire to push boundaries to try to force someone to take control."

"How do you know...Ow!...that we've been fighting?!"

"Henry told me. He calls me when you fight. That's why you kept finding your phone in his room." And now he could see the end of it.

JJ stopped yelling and fighting. As a result Jotir stopped swatting her behind and held her there. "Son of a bitch." She said softly.

"This problem has been affecting your son. Maybe it's time to pull it out into the light and deal with it directly. There's an opportunity to do that here." Spencer said gently. "You might consider it." He looked over at Elena. "Tell Jotir I said to let her go, please."

Elena translated causing Jotir to immediately release his hold. JJ scrambled to her feet and stood there, looking down at him, considering. "You okay?" Spencer asked.

"Physically," she said. She was still looking at Jotir, who looked up at her, his face utterly impassive. "I'm sorry I yelled like that."

"It was understandable. Apology accepted."

"We're not supposed to profile each other you know."

"I know. But Henry is involved."

"Good reason for it." She sighed. "This is really complicated, isn't it?"

"Yes, but it will work out." Somehow.

As Jotir moved back over to Bastian's bunk to go back to bathing his blisters JJ slid into Spencer's bunk to watch him. She was quiet the rest of the evening.

Spencer won the game.