Despite its high population and the sizable number of cities that spanned across it, melting into the valley where there were even more cities scattered about amongst the rural farmland, the San Francisco Bay Area contained a surprising number of isolated places. In some spots, you could walk a block, turn a corner, and be almost completely secluded, out of the sight and hearing of the thousands of people going through their daily lives around you. The sense of isolation could be most keenly felt after dark when, in the smaller cities, hardly anyone was out and about. After a certain hour, the downtown areas became virtual ghost towns, and the silence of the residential areas was only broken by a wandering animal or the occasional passing car.

The dark haired, dark eyed, barefooted woman in a bloody green tee shirt and jeans who was trying to escape the inescapable, dragging herself along the dried-up bed of a creek that ran along a picturesque walking trail that ran between a golf course and a quiet neighborhood that had long since turned in for the night, knew there was no hope for her, especially not now. As the man with the deceptively kind smile that she'd thought she could trust only hours earlier approached to finish the job he'd started, a breeze kicked up out of nowhere, and a strange grating, groaning, whining noise echoed through the early morning darkness, seemingly coming from the trail above...

Later That Morning:

Agent Derek Morgan hated these briefings, especially because there were usually at least three victims before anyone called them in to help out on the case, and virtually all of the victims in question had died horrifically. Someone had to get the Unsubs off the street, otherwise they'd keep on killing until the day they died, however, and he had signed up for the job. Practically the first thing after he got in that morning had been that briefing. He'd followed his team into the conference room where Garcia put up images that could never be unseen by any of them while Hotch summarized the case.

This particular Unsub had been leaving his victims near walking trails with trinkets that were obviously important to him for some reason laid on the bodies which were covered by white sheets. Joining in on the speculation as to why the Unsub was doing this, he tuned out Reid's long-winded explanation as to how this case bore certain similarities to a case in an entirely different state twenty years ago. Garcia was looking slightly queasy as always, and turning away from the photos she'd been forced to display as if wishing to unsee the darkness that had been laid bare, no matter how impossible that was. She knew full well she couldn't unsee what she had seen however, having been at this job a long time, just like him. Despite the conditions of the bodies under the white sheets, they weren't the worst pictures she'd put up during a briefing, not by a long shot.

Eventually, a tentative profile that went beyond the general "Male, possibly in his early thirties..." had been sketched out and the team broke up to gather what they needed for the trip to California where they would be helping the local law enforcement catch their Unsub before he left too much longer a trail of bodies in his wake. He generally kept a bag with a couple changes of clothes, and some toiletries on hand ready to travel, and would only have to head down to his car to retrieve it. Since he had no family living with him, all he would really have to do would be to drive to the airport and board the plane that would be waiting for the team which had rated one of their own due to all of the traveling they had to do, and the fact that they were amongst the very very best in their field, with a solve rate that bordered on the impossible for their profession.

On the plane ride over to the small airfield in the city of Concord California where they would be landing, the entire team went over the files that had been sent over along with the request that they take this case discussing a wide variety of things from the case at hand to each-other's personal lives as they did during every trip. This was their little ritual for preparing themselves for what was ahead of them. While it was important to focus on the case, it one focused entirely on the darkness that lay in wait, it would chew them up and spit them out before long.

Reid had flicked through the entire file at a near inhuman speed like he usually did, making comments on a variety of things here and there as he did so. Rossi watched this routine with an almost paternal indulgence as he usually did while J.J. and Emily quietly conversed in a corner near the back of the plane. Hotch was seated in a spot where he was relatively isolated yet able to watch the rest of the group, going over the case file for what was probably the third time for him. He alternated between conversing with Reid, Rossi, and the girls, occasionally bringing Hotchner into the conversation when he felt it was appropriate.

Eventually, the plane landed and the group was met by a representative of the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department who greeted them with the news that another body had been found just that morning, and a pair of what could either be suspects or witnesses had been found with it. Shortly after this revelation had been made, the group grabbed their bags and everything else they might need, piled into the SUVs that had been left for them by the San Francisco field office, and followed the man from the Sheriff's department to the tiny city of Clayton.

Clayton was one of the closest places you could get to a small town in an area where Suburban sprawl was slowly eating away the hillsides which had not had subdivisions on them a decade or two before. The look and feel of the place reflected that, especially the miniscule police station near the library that had the misfortune of housing the two boys who'd been found by the body which had been discovered by a man who'd gone out walking his dog in the early morning hours.

Both boys, who were wearing the strangest mishmash of clothing he'd ever seen, were covered in blood, and things didn't look too good for them. Especially since the boys had been rather uncooperative with the police who they'd rather strangely waited for after the man who'd found them had called the cops on his cell phone. As Rossi went into the room in which the boys were being held in order to get a better idea of who they were and what made them tick, he stayed back and watched on the monitor.

One boy looked shaken, and the other was acting a bit like a typical teenager - arrogant and rude - but there was something...wrong about them. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something was off about both the boys and their reactions to the situation they were in. That, and they...moved wrong. Considering the fact that the rude one had called the victim an "it", it was possible that the other one who'd been staring at his hands since before the police had arrived at the crime scene, if what he'd heard was correct, was playing for sympathy. Whether the boys had stumbled upon the victim while they were out committing some other act of criminal mischief, or were responsible for the murder as the light haired one claimed he was was up for debate. The fact that the victim had been alive when they ran into her wasn't, however. Both boys had stated it was so, and based on the amount of blood on their clothes, the woman had been bleeding heavily when they had come into contact with her.

The fact that neither boy had tried to get help, but had stayed until law enforcement had arrived was rather strange. Then again, teenagers did strange things, not everyone reacted to a crisis in a logical manner, and people sometimes reacted to death in strange ways even when they weren't responsible for it. There had been times where it had seemed almost certain that a murder had been committed due to the behavior of someone close to the deceased who'd either found them or had been present at their death, and only later was it discovered to be either natural causes or a suicide.

The lighter haired boy who hadn't said a single word to the police, even to ask where they were going as they were led to a car, seemed to be talking to Rossi. However, he mostly seemed to be saying that he'd killed the victim and that there had been alot of blood and that the blood had been wrong somehow. The other boy shook his head, and called the boy "Thete" in an attempt to get his attention. He'd stopped tapping on the table in that naggingly familiar manner as he tried to get the boy to focus on him rather than on his apparent guilt over his role in the death of the victim.

"It would seem you guys got called out here for nothing." the man from the Sheriff's department who'd come with them said, nodding towards the image on the monitor that they were both watching.

"I wouldn't be too sure." he said. Though the case seemed open and shut, especially since one of the boys claimed to have killed the latest victim and clearly looked and acted responsible for the woman's death, the alleged killer didn't appear to fit the profile. Neither did his friend for that matter.

Edited 7-18-15.