If there was anything Emily Prentiss was good at, it was compartmentalization. But this case… It was too big for her. It was a tidal wave, washing across her defenses. It was every disaster movie she'd ever seen come to life, and she was stuck playing a role, trying to protect the extras from getting hurt. In the movies, no one cares about the extras, the nameless people who are listed in the credits as 'Man 2,' 'Stewardess,' 'Kid in Street.' They're there to ratchet up the body count and horror factor without getting rid of the people that the audience will sympathize with. Was it so wrong of Emily to want to keep the extras safe?
Of course it was. Good intentions would get more people killed. If regular people knew what she knew, then paranoid delusions would become normal and only the insane ones would feel safe.
So Emily Prentiss lied. To protect people not only from the active threats but from the terrors of their own minds, Emily lied.
It didn't help her much, though. Rossi's comment to her in the elevator invaded her dreams that night. How much else was out there? How many other threats had been neutralized that she didn't know about? How many threats out there that hadn't been neutralized yet?
If there was anything Emily Prentiss was good at, it was compartmentalization. But even that skill couldn't stand up to a WMD on her own home turf.