-Lost in the Dark Chapter 4-
"Hey, Kimberlee." Prentiss greeted. The girl said nothing. When Morgan walked in, she quickly turned her head in the opposite direction. "We're only here to help you. We just need to know what happened that night."
"No, you're not helping me. You're helping yourselves to catch some fucking killers." Kimberlee started. Morgan's eyes went wide. He'd never seen so much anger in one person, let alone his sixteen year old niece.
"Baby Girl…" Morgan started, but Kimberlee interrupted him.
"I'm not your baby girl anymore, Derek. I haven't been since I was five." Kimberlee stated coldly. Morgan crossed him arms. Prentiss turned to Derek and nodded towards the hallway. They left the room silently and stood in the hall with Hotch.
"She's not going to talk to you, Morgan." Hotch said.
"She's not even acknowledging you as her uncle." Prentiss added. Morgan silently agreed and Prentiss went back in alone.
"So are you going to tell me what happened now?" Emily asked her nicely. She nodded slowly. And flashed back in her mind to tat night and began to talk through it.
"We were watching some show, Michael liked, so my mom made us watch it as a so called family. It came on every week on Thursday night. She'd even make me stop doing my homework to watch his crappy show. I hated that show." Kimberlee started.
"Is this when someone came to the door?" Prentiss prodded.
"Yea, my mom thought it was weird that someone was at our door so late. She figured it was just one of the neighbors. So she opened it and I looked up to see her become scared and she was just back up from the door. Then I saw the gun. I tried to help her, but she looked at me and whispered for me to sit down." Kimberlee reminisced.
Prentiss looked over Kimberlee's facial expressions. She could clearly see that rehashing that night was breaking her apart. She noticed that she was holding back tears, as if she was trying to be strong. Prentiss grabbed a box of tissues from the corner table and put them in front of Kimberlee, but she shook her head, but the tears continued to gather. Kimberlee's body hadn't shifted positions, she hadn't flinched. She just seemed relaxed.
"What did your step-father do? Did he try and help your mother? Did he try to help you and Janie?" Prentiss questioned. All of a sudden Kimberlee began to scratch at her arms at the mention of Janie and Michael. Emily silently noted that her breathing seemed to speed up and she instantly became nervous.
"He tried to block them from getting to Janie." Kimberlee said quietly.
"What about…" Emily started, but Kimberlee became defensive.
"She's only eight years old. That's why I took her upstairs when they knocked him out. She can't protect herself." Kimberlee rambled. She ran her hands through her hair. She looked frazzled and she began to scratch her arms furiously. Emily asked what happened next. "I picked her up and ran upstairs and told her to stay in my closet. She was crying to I gave her a stuffed animal that I had in there."
"You went back down stairs after that?" Emily asked her.
"Yea…and one of them grabbed my arm really tightly. Then they forced me to sit on the couch." Kimberlee answered her breathing was slowing down and her behavior became more relaxed.
"Where was Michael during all of this?" Emily asked again.
"I didn't see him. He wasn't there when I came back down stairs." Kimberlee said.
"Then what happened?" Prentiss questioned.
"They…" Kimberlee stopped herself and took in a deep breath. The tears began to well in her eyes again, but her body stayed still. "They started beating my mom…she kept telling me everything would be okay."
"Kimberlee…" Prentiss started.
"I couldn't help her, but I should've fought them harder. They just kept hitting her and kicking her. They wouldn't stop. They just kept going, like they had no souls." Emily tried to butt in, but she kept going. "She just kept saying, I love you and that everything would be okay, but it wasn't okay! Then one of those small minded bastards held her down and squeezed her neck. Then they let her go. I thought they were just going to leave…but then they shot her and she just stopped moving." Kimberlee said with a blank stare in her eyes.
"Did they say anything to you?" Prentiss asked with a shaky voice. Her heart was aching and breaking for this girl.
"They told me it wasn't meant to be like this." Kimberlee said. She heaved a sigh and dropped her face into her hands. Prentiss patted her shoulder and walked outside to talk to Morgan and Hotch.
-With Reid and Rossi-
"You find anything?" Rossi asked Reid who was writing notes down on the whiteboard.
"Not really. The only connection is the race of the mothers. Do you think that could be the only reason our UNSUBS targeted them?" Reid questioned.
"It's quite possible, but I have a feeling it runs much deeper than that. Morgan mentioned that Michael was a big guy and would've had to be taken down by at least two guys." Rossi noted.
"His niece said something about someone holding her down and two people beating her mother. We're dealing with at least three people." Reid added.
"So two people must be submissive and there's a ring leader." Rossi concluded.
"That's most likely." Reid said writing their conclusion on the board.
"But now what we need to know is why. Why are they targeting families with white men and African American mothers and only killing the mothers?" Rossi asked.
"The leader is most likely white and older than the two others, based off of victimology. The two submissive UNSUBS are probably in their twenties and of mixed race." Reid concluded.
"It looks like we've got a profile. I'll call Hotch." Rossi said with a hint of a smirk.
"I'll give the profile to JJ and we'll get a press conference going." Reid finished and the two agents went their separate ways.