Leah's Point of View

I opened my eyes later, feeling very sad in the pit of my stomach. He was still in my room, reading a medical text of some kind; but he wasn't really reading it, he was just skimming it with his eyes and flipping the pages as if he were. He hadn't notice me wake.

"You're still here," were the first words out of my mouth. He jumped and looked up, hazel eyes wide.

"Yes." He closed the book and put it on the small table beside him, then dragged the chair beside my bed. "Are you alright? What happened?"

"Memory," I said. It was the only way to describe it, though it didn't seem evil enough. Having lived through it once, then dreamed of it— I knew I'd be having night terrors about this for months if not years to come. He looked sympathetic.

"I still have to ask you about it," he said in a sad little voice. I nodded.

"I can do it."

"Are you sure? I mean, I wouldn't want to make you hurt any more than you already are..." I laughed.

"Believe me when I say that that's not possible." I swallowed hard. "Let's just get this over with." He nodded.

"Where were you when you were... taken?"

"I was going to Mr. Jensen's gallery with the painting I'd done for him. I was walking there, and then all of a sudden, it was dark." I shivered. "And my head hurt. I didn't see him. He must have hit me with something, though I don't know how no one saw it; it was in broad daylight."

"Around what time of day was it?"

"It was lunch time, I think. I hadn't eaten yet." It hurt to remember. It made me heart ache, but I did it. I recalled every memory I could, playing it over in my head. I had to help them find this guy.

"What do you remember next?"

"Just that it was dark. I couldn't see anything. My eyes hurt from trying."

"What did you feel? How did it smell? What impressions did you get from your captor?" I wrinkled my nose.

"It smelled like salt. There was a dripping noise. The boat rocked." I closed my eyes. "I could hear the wind, and the water hitting the hull. I could hear him whistling above deck. He sounded happy. My hands were tied behind my back. I was sitting in a wooden chair." I opened my eyes and looked at Dr. Reid. He was writing down every word I said. "Then he came down and tried to feed me. There wasn't any light, so I don't know how he could see, but he fed me pasta with a plastic fork. At first I refused it, but I hadn't eaten lunch, and when my stomach started protesting... I let him."

"How many times did this happen?"

"I know I refused the first two meals. I don't know what I was thinking— that they were drugged, or something. I watch too much TV. I think he fed me twice daily, breakfast and dinner, because by dinner I was very, very hungry. I think I ate four or five times."

"How did he treat you? Do you remember anything he said? How he said it?"

"He was... polite. He acted kind; but not like he was forcing it, or anything. He told me that..." I paused, my voice becoming quieter. "He told me that I was beautiful. That I looked just like her." The last few words were almost inaudible.

"Did he say who you looked like?" I shook my head, pressing my eyes tight together. He said 'her,' but nothing more than that.

"He told me I was perfect."

Spencer's Point of View

The sentence was so quiet; I had to lean in closer to hear her properly. Her voice was low, but still velvety soft. I jotted down everything she was saying; anything could be important. "How did he say it, when he told you that you were 'perfect'? Like he was excited about that, or unhappy?"

"He seemed... relieved." Her voice grew a little, so she was still half-whispering, but not longer practically silent. She opened her eyes. "Like that it was something elusive that he needed to... survive, almost." She sighed. "Like it was something essential to him; he neededme to be perfect." That told me that Morgan's theory— that the UNSUB was trying to recreate something— was the most probably motive.

"What happened next?"

"He came in. I thought he was coming to feed me again, but I couldn't smell food." She paused. "He smelled like peppermint." I wrote that down. "He, uh... he started running his hands up and down my arms. I begged him to let me go; I even promised not to tell the police if he did. And I wouldn't have, if he had just let me go. I hadn't even seen his face until then."

"But you did see his face?"

"Oh, yes. He turned on the light. It hurt my eyes, and I shut them— he kept telling me it was going to be alright, shushing me, trying to stop me from crying. He turned my face towards his. His eyes were very, very blue. Like the sky; but they were cold. He was white, and blond. He had a scar on chin. He was older than me, but not too cold. He looked calm, serene. He never got angry, no matter how much I begged." Tears welled in her eyes, threatening to spill over. I reached out and touched her arm, trying to comfort her, but she flinched away from me.

"Sorry," she murmured, swallowing her tears though it obviously took a great deal of effort to do so. "He called me, 'my precious,' and started... groping me." She laughed mirthlessly. "God, that sounds so middle-school. But it scared the hell out of me."

I felt terror vicariously through her words; I would almost smell the peppermint myself, almost see his very, very blue eyes. I felt scared for her, even though I knew what would happen in her story; even though I knew the ending.

"He took out a knife," she continued. "And he cut the ropes. He told me to get up. He was laughing, like it was funny." She started rubbing her wrists, which were still raw from the ropes they had been bound with, and there were soft, purple bruises dusting her forearms. "I couldn't breathe. He undressed me... and then he held my wrists and he p-pushed me to the ground..." Her voice cracked, and again the tears welled up. A single one fell, rolling silently down her pale cheek. It felt as if there was a fire starting in my stomach; anger building up inside me at what this monster did to Leah.

"I... I guess you know what happened then." I nodded.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, not knowing what else to say to her. She shrugged.

"It's not like it's your fault. Afterward, he... put me in underwear, but it wasn't mine. Then he took out the knife again. I hurt too much to move." She fell silent for a moment. "He picked me up and brought me up to the deck. It was cold and darker than inside— it was night time. Everything looked so strange... I only remember pieces of it after that. The way the moonlight cast the world into eerie shadows. The way he smiled as he raised the knife. The way I lay still as he stabbed me, hoping to hell that I was dreaming. I remember how cold the water was."

"He smiled as he did those things to you?" I heard my voice say, quiet and deep, though I didn't remember telling my mouth to make the words. I was angry at him. Terrified for her, of course, but more than anything, I just wanted to kill the man who did this to her. I was shocked to know that I could want to kill someone.

"He smiled gleefully." The fire in the pit of my stomach seemed to grow hotter with every word she spoke. I knew then that I had to find the blue-eyed monster. Not to send him to jail for life, no; he didn't deserve that. He needed a knife plunged into his stomach five times. He needed to be dumped, alive, into freezing water. He needed to die without any hope of rescue. I only wished I could do that to him without killing a part of myself along with him. But, oh! How I wanted to. I wanted to watch the life drain from his blue eyes. I'd never felt this angry before.

"Dr. Reid? Are you alright?" I looked up at her, anger fading as I looked at her. She was an innocent. She was an artist. She was beautiful. He had taken everything from her. And she was concerned about me? It was laughable.

"I'm fine," I said, trying to keep my voice even. Truthfully, I was angry. I was scare of myself— I wanted to kill someone? Me! And I was worried about her. And I was determined to catch her would-be killer. I wouldn't kill him, but I would make sure he would get life without parole. I would hope for the death penalty, but would rather do it myself.

Leah told me she couldn't remember anything else. The interview culminated with me giving her my business card, and telling her to call me if she remembered anything or if she 'just needed to talk.' I don't know why I added that on the end. I hadn't been planning on it. But never talking to Leah again seemed like a crime. I told her that I could psychoanalyse her if she wanted me to. She said, "Thanks, but no thanks." I left.

Emily's Point of View

Hotch cleared his throat, and basically asked us all to spill on what we'd learned. Morgan stepped up first, explaining what we learned for each of the victims' family. Two were going to the grocery store, one in the afternoon, the other late at night; one had walked, the other took her bike. One of the victims was taking the dog for a walk. The dog was found later, a good ways away from where he should have been. The fourth victim was coming home from work. She had been driving, her car found a few blocks away.

"Leah Banks was on her way to an art gallery," Reid put in, circling the gallery on a map he had set up before I arrived. His hands were shaking. The other locations were too circled, but there wasn't a pattern anywhere. The two who both went to the grocery store hadn't even been going to the same one.

Rossi sighed unhappily. "The only thing that connects these women is their appearances." He pressed a button on the phone and Garcia picked up with one of her usual comedic lines.

"You have reached the Almighty Computer Goddess, how may I take your order?"

"Garcia, have you found a connection in the victims yet?" asked Hotch impatiently. I was surprised. Hotch is rarely impatient. I thought maybe his unease over the situation had something to do with how weird Reid was acting; bouncing up and down a little in his seat, wringing his hands, fiddling with a pencil on the table, bending the corners of his notes. Reid rarely fidgeted. There was something with his case that was really bugging him, and Hotch obviously wanted this one solved fast (not that he didn't always) for Reid.

"Unfortunately, no, I did not. Not a single blip on my radar, either. None of them used their credit cards after they were dead, and there weren't any witnesses, either. They just disappear, and then their bodies wash ashore."

"Nothing was similar?" I asked, disappointed. I had been dreading the day that not even Garcia could find something to pull a case together.

"You mean other than the fact that they could be clones of each other? No." Reid squeaked slightly, but no one noticed. They were all collaborating on what the killer's motive was, how he was abducting them, arguing on why there weren't connections. I kept telling them that it couldn't be random, it was too planned; but no one was listening to anyone else very much.

"He's trying to recreate the archetype," said Reid, who until then had basically been silent since he marked the locations on the map. The team stopped their arguing and turned to watch him at he did his own profile. Even I fell silent. "He hits them over the head, probably when he knows no one is watching. He probably has out outside influence setting off his abductions." I was watching him, too. He got up from his chair and started to pace rapidly back and forth. "He chooses his victims based on their appearance, and ease of capture. He keeps them in a ship with their hands tied behind their backs for a few days, sitting on a wooden chair. He feeds them twice daily, so they become dependent on and trust him. He tells them that they are beautiful, and perfect. He told Leah Banks that she looked 'just like her.'" He paused, taking a long, shuddering breath.

"Banks told you all this?" I asked, surprised that someone had opened up so freely to Reid. It wasn't that he wasn't a good guy— he was. He was sweet, and kind, and smart. But I wouldn't spill my guts to the guy.

"Yes." He paused in his pacing, looking at me vaguely. Then he started back up again. "Looking like whoever he is staging his victims after is essential. She said he sounded relieved when he told her she was perfect. He rapes them, and dresses them in black underwear. He takes them up to the deck, where he stabs them and throws them overboard. He smiles as he stabs them. She used the word 'gleefully.'" I winced, in my mind seeing a shadowy figure above me with a knife, smiling gleefully.

"Did she say what he looked like?" asked Morgan, intrigued.

"White male, older than her but not 'old'— so I'm estimating mid-thirties— he has a scar on his chin, blond hair and has very, very blue eyes. She said they were like the sky, only cold. She mentioned that he was very calm the whole time."

"We should have her talk to a sketch artist," said Rossi. Everyone agreed, and we broke off for the day. Reid looked ill at ease. If anything, he looked like he was going to throw up.

"Good job with that profile, Reid," I commented, giving him a smile to try and cheer him up. He stared blankly at me in an almost disconcerting way.

"Thanks," he mumbled tonelessly.

"Try and get some sleep, you look tired," I suggested. He shrugged and left me standing alone silently. There was defidently something bothering him.