Her hands were trembling on the wheel. Not of fear, but of anger. She was angry at the creep harassing her, and angry at herself.

Angry that she yelled at her mother, angry that she couldn't control herself and angry that she let those phone calls terrorize her. She was ready to take charge again. If only her hands would stop trembling.

"Why don't you face me?" she had said to the threatening voice on the other side, when he had called her while she was at her moms.

It had been silent for a while and JJ had expected that he would hang up.

"You'll find me at the right place at the right time" he finally said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" JJ was sick and tired of his stupid games.

She could hear him sigh, he was running out of patience and didn't want her to spoil his game.

"At the right time" he repeated "btw I see that you visited our old friend".

He hung up before she could think about what that meant.

Right place, right time? our old friend.. there is no our.. visited our old friend.. what if he meant?.. Oh God.. Smitty!

She drove like crazy to get to his house while phoning him from the car. She got a creepy flashback from yesterday, but now she was able to push her panic aside and keep relatively calm.

"JJ" he answered friendly. She felt instantly relieved to hear his voice.

"Hey" she was able to keep her tone calm and normal, even a bit cheerful "I was wondering if I could come over?"

"Well you could, but I'm not home. I was just taking a look at the woods where Clarissa was found. I wanted to form a better image."

"Alright, could I join you?" she felt a need to be close to him.

"Sure" he probably thought that she shared his driven mind-set.

"It's like a 45 minute drive right?" she was digging her memory for the exact location.

Smitty explained her the route she had to take.

She hang up and stared at that cursed device that caused her some much misery and she turned it off. She was driving for nearly 10 minutes when she heard the radio warning for an upcoming storm, which was treacherous with this warm weather. They better hurry.

The more she drove easterly the harder the wind got. She could feel it banging against her car. Then out of nothing the rain came pouring down. This wasn't a good idea. She turned on the phone again, she had a missed call.. but she would check it later. First she should call Smitty and blow it off, they could never take a good look with this rain and wind bashing on them.

She speed dialed the number.

" I was j.. goin.. call you" he said.

"I can't hear you" she almost yelled back "let's go back, this storm is pretty bad."

"My idea exactly, I'm just walking to my car" she could hear him perfectly again "we will take a close look tomorr.. Aagh"

"Smitty! Smitty!" JJ yelled.

No response. Then, in a short moment, she heard it: a laugh.

Then it was gone.

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She blinked a couple of times.

Did she really heard someone laugh? Yes, she did. He was there. He had Smitty.

She didn't know where she got the strength from, but she pulled herself together and dialled 911. She could hear herself talking from a distant with a steady voice. They told her to wait in the car, it was too dangerous to go in the woods by herself with this storm. And she soon found out that it was a legitimate warning. The wind was so hard that branches easily broke from the trees and fell on the ground like bombs. She parked the car and without second thoughts grabbed her gun and ran into the woods. She did her best to remember coordinates he had gave her, but she quickly found his car.

"Smitty!" the wind blew away her words.

She kept running, but the ground had became so slippery from the rain, that it didn't take long before she fell in the mud. She stood up again.

"Smitty!"

A branch fell off and she could duck just in time to keep it from falling on her head, but she felt painfully how it scratched her arm and apparently deep enough to feel her warm blood run over her arm.

JJ was about to call for Smitty, when she suddenly saw a short man lying on the ground close to a tree.

She fell down next to him, letting down her guard.

"Smitty" she whispered, "it's okay, it's going to be okay. I'm here, you're going to be okay. The ambulance is on its way."

He didn't open his eyes, he didn't move his limbs. His body only let out an horrible groan, that lasted for moments.

In those moments she realized what he meant for her. He had been her mentor, her guardian, even a father at times.

He couldn't die, he just couldn't.

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Hotch was staring at the photo's of women and girls that were spread out on the floor.

Sandy had shown him the guestroom in which JJ was working on the "research".

He had no idea what he was looking for. He couldn't see any clear connection between the cases. Despite their gender and the woods, they differed on practically everything. No indication that it was the same killer.

So what was JJ looking for?

He looked around the room, another question came to mind: why was she doing this in the guestroom?

Did she want to keep her room safe from the gruesome information or something?

He felt how his curiosity grow.. would he take a peek at her room? It wasn't hard to guess which room belonged to JJ. Her letters stick on the door.

He took a deep breath and carefully opened the door and took a few steps.

The room he was standing in was by far one of the most peculiar he had seen. It was as if the room couldn't make up its mind whether to belong to a teenager or an adult. If it wasn't for a couple of rock band posters hanging on the wall, he would've almost believed that he was standing in the guest room. The colours were.. well non-existing really. He was struck by the tidiness of the room. Very unlike the chaotic JJ, that used to have boxes standing everywhere in her room when she was the liaison person. He saw one picture standing on a desk of JJ and a couple of girls in their sports outfit. It was the most personal item of the room he could discover.

It gave him a sad feeling and all of a sudden he got this urge to just get out.

He thought about a conversation he and JJ had a couple of years ago.

'Why did you play?' he'd asked when JJ told him she'd hated playing in the soccer team.

'Athletic scholarship was the only way I was getting to college.. It was my only way out..' she'd said.

'...my only way out...' he could hear her voice echoing in his head.

Out of what?

Out of this town.. away from bad memories..

Everything in this room screamed 'Get out!'.. 'run!'

And he did. He got out of the room.

Embarrassed.. that word summed up everything he felt right now.

As if he had read her diary. Could he invade her privacy even more?

He scolded himself. He had no right to just look at her room like that. He wished he hadn't.

The sound of a slamming front door brought him back to reality.

He heard how Sandy quickly walked to the hallway and let out a sound that was in-between a scream and squeal.

He walked to the stairs and there he was looking down on JJ...

JJ...

all covered in mud and blood...