Hi!
Chapter Fifteen:
There was a framed photo of Reid surrounded by flowers. The silver urn was positioned beside it. The team stood before it in silence. They had no one to blame but themselves.
The firebomb had turned everything to ash. Spalding, Jameson, and Reid were reduced to bone and tissue fragments.
"Get out!"
William Reid appeared.
"You're responsible for my son's death! He would have figured out a better solution if you had told him what was going on. He would be alive!"
"We know," Prentiss said.
"F**K all of you. F**K all of you to hell!"
"We're sorry," Rossi said.
"I don't want to hear it. Get out!"
They left without saying anything else. The terrorist cell was caught by homeland security after Fenton tipped them off. The leader released a screed online upon arrest where he described forcing the FBI to torture one of their own.
"What now?" J.J. asked as they entered the parking lot. "None of us are going to have jobs after the hearing is done. Even Will is getting blowback."
"Same with Kristie," Simmons said.
Jackie Fenton emerged from a shadow. "Would you like to work for me?"
"Why would you want anything to do with us?" Morgan asked. "We got two of your partners killed."
"Two of my named partners," she said. "You don't how many I actually have."
J.J. rushed forward and swung her fist at Fenton. She dodged it.
"You were supposed to keep him safe!"
"There was no safe place for him. He was a target so long as people were willing to pay to see him tortured. There was no good way for this to end. I'm sorry."
"You want us to work for you? WHY!?" J.J. yelled.
"Have you seen how awful the world has gotten? The more money put out the more criminal elements there are. I need people who know the system to help me with this work."
"What would we do with our spouses and kids?" Simmons asked.
"I have all sorts of resources for looking after people. I also have positions where you never have to leave your house."
"What is the point?" Alvez said. "We failed Reid."
"The point is, you have to live now," Fenton said. "You have to live like the rest of your life matters. To make up for what happened to Reid, you need to start putting good back into the world."
"You really think you can help us?" Lewis said.
"I know I can."
J.J. wiped a tear away. "I'm not ready. I can't let him go."
"Don't. Live with the pain. Let it turn you into something better."
"What now? What do we do?" Garcia pleaded.
"Look for messages from me," Fenton said.
She then took off in a brisk walk into the shadows.
"Who's thinking about it?" Simmons asked.
"Let's talk more about it elsewhere," Prentiss said.
It was then that they realized there were no easy answers. For a why a man decided to direct the rage of his organization at Reid or why it had to end with his death. The only thing any of them knew for certain was they had to do better. For Reid.
Epilogue
Five years later:
Megan Hughes walked to the doc in Malta. The mega yacht she was looking for was the Psyche.
A gangly brunette-haired girl who looked no older than ten dressed in jeans and a Pi shirt appeared.
"Password?"
"Are you the guard?" Megan asked dubiously.
"What's the password?" she asked insistently.
"I'd like to speak to upper management," she said with a sigh.
"Upper management is my mom and dad and they wouldn't want me to bother them while they're playing chess."
"Listen you little brat," she said menacingly.
A door opened. A dark-skinned woman in her twenties with braids in her black hair appeared.
"Don't mind squirt," she said in accented English. "Are you Megan Hughes?"
"Yes," she said.
"You're early. Welcome aboard."
Megan stepped onto the ship with her luggage.
"But you didn't ask her the password," the girl said.
"You're supposed to be in bed."
"But all the interesting stuff happens at night!"
"If you go to bed now, I won't rat you out to your parents."
"Fine," she said with a huff and walked in the opposite direction.
"I'm Kirby," she said.
"What are kids doing on a private security boat?" Megan asked.
"We do smuggle children out of dangerous situations from time to time. That girl happens to be the result of illegal experimentation to the point where she has no safe place to go on land if anyone had a look at a sample of her blood."
"So, she's kept as a pet," Megan said.
"Don't say that in front of the boss. He calls her his daughter."
"Who is the boss? I just know that he is extremely intelligent and reclusive."
"You'll see soon enough. The next door is the sick bay. I'd like you to talk to the doctor quickly. Then head to the main salon."
"Got it."
Megan opened the door and found the doctor at his desk. He was a reasonably good-looking fellow in his forties.
"Hi, I'm Dr. Connors," he said. "I just want to go over a few things in your file. Do you have any medications that need to be stocked?"
Megan showed him his phone. "Birth control, a multi-vitamin, and thyroid medication."
"Nothing too difficult," he said and added it to his computer. "Are you having any pain from the gunshot wound?"
"No."
"That's all I need from you. Welcome to the Psyche."
"Thanks. Care to drop any hints about what to expect from our boss?"
"He doesn't like handshakes. Ignore any requests for coffee after lunch. If you want to get on his good side, quote Doctor Who to him."
"Thanks."
Megan stepped out and headed to the main salon.
A man with his hair in a ponytail with a thin mustache was playing chess with a woman whose skin was almost luminously white against her coppery red hair.
"Hello Megan," he said pleasantly. "I like to be called Dr. Merton. Welcome to the team."
"And I'm Dr. Eyre," she said.
"I've heard so many rumors about both of you," Megan said. "That you had your deaths faked. That you intercepted a cargo ship full of starving women and killed their captors."
"Every rumor has a grain of truth," he said.
"And we didn't kill all the captors," Eyre said. "We needed some for their intel and to keep the boat running."
"There is a meeting at midnight," he said. "Get yourself situation in stateroom four. We'll meet again."
"Thank you," she said.
Megan left the couple to look for a map of the ship. Her new bosses were extremely mysterious. But if half the rumors about what they had gone through about them being tortured and nearly killed were true, they were entitled to their privacy. All Megan knew for certain was she was going to have the opportunity to do a lot of good for the world while working with this couple.
THE END
Author's Note:
I don't know how this one got away from me. I really enjoyed writing it. I probably had a different idea for how to end this story at some point. But I like what I came up with.
Thank you for following along. Who knows what story I'll try to finish next! Thank you!
