**Edited a few mistakes that I caught too late! I think I need a BETA if there are any volunteers?**

A/N: Thank you so much to rmpcmfan and thehecticglow for your wonderful reviews. As I said before, I don't write solely for reviews, but feedback is always nice. That way I don't feel like I'm writing for an empty room! You all made my weekend!

This chapter is another one that contains a lot of backstory.

As usual, I own nothing.

Over the years, she had learned many skills.

How to read, how to write, how to pass a stranger on the street and NOT assault them with a blunt object. She was slowly starting to become a normal human being.

The one thing she was never taught was how to actually befriend new people. Throughout her life, she had only a handful of acquaintances: Her parents, Mr. Barry, The Malloy's, and now General Laramie and Colonel Stacey. When she learned the definition of 'friend' she determined that she never had one.

Her parents were just that. Parents. And a quick read through her Britannica Volume No. 9 revealed that they were barely even that.

Mr. Barry was an enemy if anything-according to Volume 4.

As nice as the Malloy's were to her, they were her guardians. They were what parents were supposed to be. And though they filled the void, that she wasn't even aware was in her heart, they couldn't be friends. She needed them to remain parental figures.

Laramie and Stacey were her keepers. They made sure that she didn't kill. They kept her in line. She definitely didn't want them to be her friends.

No matter how desperate she was for some.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday she accompanied the two retired Marines to the large building downtown. The Pentagon, they had called it, was a labyrinth filled with cold rooms and fancy people. All who passed looked to be in a hurry. They were far too important to even look her was as they hurried down the gray halls.

Laramie sat her down in the green chair by the metal door. She spent hours in that spot every week. He handed her Volume 2 of her Encyclopedia set-this was her third time reading through it. "Be good." He ordered, throwing a wink at the secretary sitting at her desk on the other side of the room.

Her name was Annabelle and she seemed afraid of Molly. She always walked the long way around the waiting area to retrieve a cup of coffee and she never made eye contact. It was almost amusing.

Molly watched Laramie and Stacey disappear into their secret room before turning back to her book. She was just getting started on the Byzantine Empire when the scent of flowers filled her nose. It reminded her of the Malloys' farm.

She glanced up to see a thin woman breezing towards Annabelle's desk. She wore a black skirt and a maroon jacket with shoulder pads. Her hair was brown and pulled into a neat bun. She was beautiful.

"Is Mr. Prentiss occupied?" The woman's clipped voice was oddly soothing.

But of course, Annabelle seemed skittish. Her eyes widened and she sat up in her seat. "Um...no ma'am...they just. They just started." She gestured towards the metal doors. "I can see if he's able to-"

"No, no." The older woman waved her hand. "I can wait." She sat in the chair to Molly's left and pulled a black leather binder from the satchel she'd been toting.

Molly watched from the corner of her eye-she at least knew how to appear to be polite. She had never seen a woman so put together. Mrs. Malloy, though quite beautiful, was always in comfy clothes around the house. She only dressed up when they were going to an officer's ball, but that normally consisted of a loose up-do and a plain dress.

This lady was dressed so nicely for it to just be a Wednesday afternoon.

"That is a very big book!" The voice startled her.

Molly darted her eyes up and felt her cheeks heat up at the woman's gaze. She had a friendly smile on her face, and she appeared harmless enough. So Molly lifted the encyclopedia up to reveal the cover.

"Oh my!" The lady let out a soft laugh. "I don't know if I've ever read that one."

The girl furrowed her eyebrows. General Laramie had told her that everyone was required to read all the way through the encyclopedia. How else would they learn everything?

"I've read it a few times." She said softly, hoping not to sound too boastful. "Number eight is my favorite."

"And why is that?"

"Narwhals." Molly cleared her throat. "And...And Octopuses."

"Don't you mean Octopi?"

"It can be either." She wasn't supposed to argue with adults, but the woman's smile told her that she didn't do anything wrong.

"Well, you are a very smart young lady." She beamed and held out her hand. "My name is Elizabeth."

Molly stared at the offered limb for a moment before her lips twitched. She reached out and shook it. "I'm Molly."

/

Interstate 20

Texas

It started raining just before they reached Van Horn.

Hotch spent the early part of the evening driving while Morgan took over from the late hours through morning. He had just made the trip to and from the West Texas town the day before, so he was a little more familiar with the route.

Emily remained in the back seat for the entire trip-the green urn clutched to her chest and her feet rested up on the front center console. Occasionally, when he knew it would go undetected by the other man in the car, Aaron would gently rub her socked foot with the back of his hand. She needed comfort and there was only so much that could be given when their relationship was as clandestine as it was.

Joseph Monti, another Italian Red Card Retiree, was Robert Payne in his new life. He owned an auto shop on the highway that stretched between the Mexican Border and the first clump of Texas cities. He repaired cars for cheap and even donated clunkers to families in need so that they could get as far as possible into the U.S.

"If only some of these guys discovered their good nature before they joined Red Card." Derek mused signaling to pull off at the next exit.

"Unfortunately helping immigrants doesn't cancel out the three families he murdered in '95." Hotch murmured, flipping through the man's file for the third time. "He stabbed his own brother when they were teenagers. Paralyzed him from the waist down."

Prentiss winced and rolled her head to look out the window. The desert landscape was certainly getting old. "Is he dangerous?" She asked, afraid of the answer.

"Mr. Payne weighed in at 460 at his last physical." Aaron assured her. "He has had two heart attacks since 2009 and has had his spleen and one kidney removed. I'm pretty sure Reid could take him on."

Morgan chuckled at his boss' rare show of humor. It was obvious that he, like everyone else on the team, was just trying to keep Emily calm. She was on the brink of a panic attack, and they needed her to stay level-headed. When the time came, she was going to be the one to retrieve Molly. A familiar face was what it was going to take to get the terrified woman to snap out of it.

He took a deep breath as he turned onto the exit that would take them to the dusty town of Van Horn. If he never saw Texas again after this, it would be too soon.

/

Rough and Tumble Auto Shop

Van Horn, Texas

She had always loved the smell of gasoline. The fumes sometimes made her light-headed, but it was a comforting aroma all the same. She took a deep whiff as she made her way across the deserted road towards the metal building.

A man, large and hideous, sat in a rocking chair just outside of the large opened door. His snores pierced the air, indicating that not only was he asleep but he was in a deep state of unconsciousness.

Molly pulled the syringe out of her pocket. It would be a double dose this time-Monti was a big man when she had first met him in the early 2000's, so she had anticipated him doubling in size now that he was living the easy life. She wasn't wrong. The poor chair he had passed out in looked as though it were about to buckle under the weight.

Cringing, Molly pierced the needle into the back of his neck-between the fat folds-and pressed down on the plunger. Monti woke up just in time to let out a grunt and hit her in the side with one of his beefy paws. She had been shot the day before, so her pain tolerance was at an all-time high.

As soon as his body relaxed, she went around the rocker and shoved it forward until he tipped out onto the ground-that would have weighed in as a 7.8 on the Richter scale.

She took out her knife and tried to figure out the best way to go about amputating the tree trunks before her. He was too thick! Not even an axe would take care of this situation. With a sigh she settled for a simple, yet long-lasting, approach.

/

They had to have just missed her. Dust was still lingering in the air where she would have been parked. Morgan dropped them off before taking off down the road to see if he could catch her.

Pathetic whimpers came from the robust figure lying face down in the dirt. A hunting knife stuck out of his lower back. Not a fatal wound. Just a paralyzing one. Emily smiled tightly, remembering the pictures of Monti's wheelchair bound thirteen year old little brother.

"Want to call a bus?" Aaron asked gently, placing a hand between her shoulder blades. He wasn't coddling her-he just wanted to make sure she was still Prentiss. His Prentiss. His heart fluttered with relief when she nodded and pulled her cell phone from her pocket.

Her finger paused on the buttons when the device lit up. 'Unknown Caller'.

Molly. She kept her hopes internalized. It could be Molly.

Clearing her throat, she held the phone to her ear. "Prentiss."

"You have to catch her Emily." The stern voice caused two simultaneous reactions. Disappointment and fear.

"We're doing our best mother." She rolled her eyes at Hotch who took that as his cue to call the ambulance on his phone. Conversations with Elizabeth Prentiss were never short. "How did you find out?"

"You're not the only one with connections." Elizabeth said haughtily. After a beat, she elaborated. "Your tech analyst contacted some former colleagues of mine regarding Molly Briggs and it got back to me. It didn't take long to connect the dots on all of the Red Card's suddenly being detained."

Emily sighed. For a brief moment, she had feared that something slipped through the cracks and that the story had made national news. She should have known better than to doubt JJ's excellent negotiating skills. "You have to keep this quiet." She ordered her mother. "If they find out that she's after them-"

"Please Emily, I wasn't born yesterday." The older Prentiss huffed. "But you have to catch her. She needs to be locked up."

"What?" Prentiss practically shrieked. "No she doesn't!"

"She's cutting men up and leaving them for dead."

"No, if she wanted them dead, they'd be dead. You know that as well as I do."

"Well, she's still unbalanced."

"Mother-"

"She killed your brother Emily. Why must you always defend her?" Elizabeth snapped. "And now she's endangering your nephew! Is he with her on her little spree? Or did she leave him behind in the wilderness to fend for himself?"

Emily felt the air rush out of her lungs. She hadn't told her. It had been over a month, and she had failed to tell the woman that her grandson was dead. Murdered.

What the HELL was wrong with her?

The silence went on for far too long. Elizabeth said something along the lines of "You didn't think about that did you?" But Emily wasn't really listening, so she couldn't be sure.

When her daughter failed to reply after nearly an entire minute, Elizabeth spoke again. This time her voice was filled with concern. "Emily, Darling, what is it?" She asked gently. She must have heard the unevenness in her child's breathing. "Are you alright? What's going on?"

"Mother...um..." Prentiss sniffled and turned away from Hotch. He had seen her cry before, so she wasn't embarrassed, she just knew that any look he gave her-whether it be stern or sympathetic-would make her more emotional. "Flynn's...Flynn died."

It was her turn to receive silence as a response. She was relieved that she at least had the leeway to explain. "Remi Gusev, he was a friend of Nick's, he um...he kidnapped him and...He killed him." She swallowed shakily, closing her eyes when she felt Aaron's hand on her shoulder. "He shot him...right in front of us...right in front of Molly."

Elizabeth remained quiet for just a moment more. It was obvious by the muffled coughs and sniffles that she was trying to compose herself. "Dear Lord." She finally whispered. "I never even...that is...Well, I never got to meet him."

She sounded defeated. And though Emily had learned only a few years before that her mother indeed faced the hardships of mere mortals, it was still strange to hear it in her normally strong voice.

"I know." She said.

"But still, she shouldn't-"

"Mother." Emily cut her off. "We are aware of what should and shouldn't be done. But we need to worry about Molly right now. She's the victim here. There's no way around that."

When a huff of air came through the earpiece, she was absolutely positive that her mother was going to object. After Nicholas' death, she denounced Molly as a human being. She threatened to destroy her if she ever came near Emily or herself ever again. Of course, Emily made it clear to her sister-in-law that she would always be welcomed in her home.

She just wished that Molly had taken her up on the offer.

Elizabeth surprised her with a clipped. "Yes. No, yes, that's true." She cleared her throat. "She needs help." It wasn't the same help she had been referring to for the past decade. She wasn't suggesting that she see a therapist or be admitted into a mental institution.

She was telling Emily to actually help Molly. To make sure she was safe.

"Yeah." Prentiss would have smiled had this been any other time. But her shoulders drooped from the draining tension and chest felt lighter. "I'll keep you updated."

It was something she should have been doing from the beginning. The woman went weeks without knowing that she was no longer a grandmother. Though she had never met Flynn, she still had a picture of him on her desk-one of him sitting in the snow outside of his Alaskan home-the only one Molly had ever sent them.

When Emily lowered the phone, Aaron edged slightly closer. He had been focusing all of his attention on Monti. The half-conscious man was still grunting at their feet and it was obvious that he wouldn't be getting up and running any marathons-with or without the knife in his spine-but he had to look at something.

"I can't believe I never told her." She finally sighed, rubbing her forehead. "I didn't tell my own mother about her grandson's death."

"It was a strange time." Hotch tried to comfort her, but her knew his words would fall on deaf ears. "You were recovering from your abduction, worrying about Molly, and we had so many cases. It's no surprise that it slipped through the cracks."

Prentiss sniffled and nodded jerkily. Of course, she didn't really feel better, but now was not the time to be worrying about things that couldn't be changed. She'd make it up to her mother when she got home.

/

Reid had never hated being out of the field more than he did at that moment.

Generally, he would jump at the chance to stay behind and work the profile of their Unsubs. His brain thrived on delving into human nature and detecting patterns. And while that held true over the past couple of days, he was starting to feel his hands shake.

Molly's profile was done. All of her victims'-both past and future-profiles were done. He had even profiled Nicholas and Flynn Prentiss, hoping to find something, anything, that would help him see into the mind of the complex nature of the former CIA Assassin.

Now he sat, staring at the timeline he had made for no other reason but to keep his hands busy. Garcia had gone to get their lunch and their phones hadn't made a sound since Hotch called to report the stabbing of Joseph Monti.

Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen. Then twenty.

Garcia came just as he noticed the oddity.

"Was Sergeant Malloy Molly's guardian until she joined the CIA?" He asked, startling the sandwich toting blonde.

Penelope narrowed her eyes in deep thought before logging on to her computer. "Yes...Yes?" She cocked her head to the side. "At least, that's what her file tells me. But given the all-in-all sketchiness of this entire investigation, I'd feel inclined to look further into it if your gut is concerned."

Spencer bit his lower lip and clicked his teeth, not taking his eyes off of the papers taped to the board in front of him. "Sergeant Timothy Malloy and his wife Vivien signed off on everything Molly required from 1989 until early '91." He pointed to printouts from Molly's annual physicals. "The last thing they signed off on was a therapy visit right her tenth birthday. After that, the signatures were replaced with just an 'X'."

"That wouldn't be permissible in a doctor's office." Garcia said.

"No, no it shouldn't be." Reid agreed. It went without saying that many things throughout Molly's upbringing weren't necessarily permissible. "Were there any other therapy sessions on record?"

Penelope scrolled, scrolled, typed, and scrolled before shaking her head. "Eh, eh." She sounded out as she licked her bottom lip. "She was actually the only one in her graduating class that bypassed the mandatory psych evaluation. General Arnold Laramie cleared her both mentally and physically." Her jaw tensed when she got to the last page of her academy paperwork. "And check out that signature."

She turned her computer towards him, revealing the sloppy 'X' scribbled on the bottom line of her evaluation page.

/

The ambulance arrived just as Derek pulled up in the SUV. He was shaking his head as he jumped out and made his way over to them.

"I followed some tire tracks out to the main road, but when it went from dirt to asphalt I couldn't tell which way they went." He sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "She's probably going to the next location."

She was up to one capture a day. If she had been an Unsub, this would have been more alarming. And had they not been concerned for Molly's safety, they would have been impressed.

"Same as before, we'll need to move fast." Hotch gave JJ's card to the Van Horn Police Chief. "Please contact Agent Jareau as soon as possible."

With that, he led his agents towards the car. His phone rang just as he was climbing into the driver's seat. "What do you have Reid?" He gave a quick look to his surroundings as he pulled back out onto the dirt road.

"Hotch, there might be a bit of a situation." The young man's voice practically quivered on the other end.

"What is it?" Hotch put it on speaker and handed it to Morgan, trying to focus as much as possible on the rough drive.

"The Malloy's guardianship over Molly seemed to dissolve literally overnight in '91. A General Laramie took her under his wing after that."

"General Laramie was her mentor while she was in the academy." Emily recalled. "He brought her over to our house for dinner all the time. We just assumed she was his ward or something. My father never mentioned that there was anything off about it."

"She's the sole-beneficiary on his will and he had a substantial trust fund set up under her name. He was never married nor did he have children, so he probably just presented her as the child of a fallen comrade. It's not uncommon for commanding officers to adopt the orphans of their men. It's a way to alleviate the guilt." Spencer rambled. "But the thing is there is no record of Sergeant Malloy or his wife's death. They took her to therapy one day and disappeared the next."

"Someone didn't like that she was getting help." Derek deduced, glancing at his boss and then Emily.

"So what does this have to do with what's happening now?" Hotch demanded. As harsh as he was being, it was for the best. They couldn't afford to be pulling at the threads of insignificant leads.

Shuffling came from the other end. Judging Reid, he was probably adjusting the phone against his shoulder so that he could rifle through his papers with both hands. "General Laramie is the one who took Molly from the people who were willing to help her. He harvested her into a monster and made sure that she didn't have a moment of clarity." He explained. "If she's going after wrong-doer's he should be at the top of her list."

"So if he's still alive, she'd be saving him for last." Emily said.

"He is still alive. He's in a Veteran's home in Walsenburg, Colorado." Reid told them. "That's eight hours from you guys."

"If she's feeling the pressure then she might move him to the top of her list." Morgan began to look up the location of the home. "We should head there next!"

Hotch nodded and pressed down on the accelerator when they hit the highway. "Call Rossi and have him and JJ head to the next Red Card location. It's very possible that she will want to stick to her order." He sighed and looked in the rear view mirror at Emily. She was gnawing on her thumbnail and staring at off into space, her brows furrowed with worry. "If nothing else, we'll get answers from Laramie."

Prentiss paused and shifted her gaze towards his. Sitting up, she bit her lower lip and nodded.

/