Prentiss
Three days in Portland, Oregon and two of the children taken had already shown up, bloodied and dead. I was allowed to do everything I normally would except for hunt the unsub actively once we knew who it was.
"I don't understand. They're taken care of great, but then they're killed so brutally." JJ said quietly, staring at the board.
Then it clicked. Why had we all bypassed this and not even mention it? "It's a team," I said, "A female and a male. The female takes them, cares for them until the child does something wrong or one of them decides that it's the wrong child for them and then the male kills and disposes of them."
"How did no one come up with that until now?" Morgan asked. It sounded so clear and understandable now. Hotch got his phone out and called Garcia, putting her on speaker.
"Hello my babies; please tell me you need something that I can actually help you with." She greeted. Hotch looked at me.
"Garcia, we need you to widen your search to neighbouring towns and look for a team of a female and male; siblings, a married couple, even just a boyfriend and girlfriend. Look into children's deaths that may have been caused by murder or something else that could be so gruesome. See if anything related to it happened recently that could be the stressor or trigger."
"On it. I'll call when I have something good."
"Thank you baby girl." Morgan said in his smooth talking voice.
It was late now and I was extremely tired. We all were and Hotch had noticed. "Everyone go back to the hotel and get some rest. We'll work better rested."
"But there's more—"
"JJ, we're not getting anywhere right now," Hotch cut her off, "We'll start again in the morning. I'll call Garcia and tell her to go home too."
They all agreed and stood up. "Prentiss, come on." Hotch said once he noticed I hadn't moved.
I turned and looked at him, "I will in a few minutes; I just need to do one more thing."
"Do you want us to wait?" Reid asked.
"No, you guys go. I'll leave soon."
"I want you out of here by 10:30." Hotch said as he walked out with the others. I nodded and they left swiftly. It was 1 am in Virginia, too late to call Sarah and Ainsley. I turned back to the board and stared at all the information and photos. After about 5 minutes, I got up and made myself some coffee from the break room. I went back and went through everything again. I lost track of time and it was sunrise before I knew it, I had drunk so much coffee that I was buzzing all night.
I had taken everything off the board and stuck it back up so I could understand it all better. There must have been 20 empty paper cups that I had drunk coffee from throughout the night.
"Prentiss!" Hotch scolded as he and the team walked in. I turned around quickly and looked at them, startled. "I meant 10:30 pm, not am." He said as he looked at the coffee cups.
"You changed the board?" Reid asked, looking at everything and the writing beside it all that I had done in the mix of working some things out.
"Yeah…well it makes sense now. It's neat and not spread out so randomly."
He looked at me and tried to hold an amused smile back as he took his bag from his shoulder and sat down. I walked to the table and collected the empty cups.
"18 cups? My god, how are you not dead?" JJ asked as she counted what I picked up.
"Not dead, awake though." I said quickly as I walked out towards the break room. I put more coffee on and threw the empty cups out. I turned around and was startled again by Hotch's presence, "Jesus Christ, announce yourself." I said as I put my hand over my fast beating heart.
"You're not meant to stay all night, Prentiss."
"I couldn't sleep so I came back." I lied.
"If you were tired enough to drink 18 cups of coffee, you were tired enough to fall asleep. Did you even go back to the hotel?"
"No." I admitted with shame seeping through my voice.
"That isn't healthy." He shook his head.
"I know, but I don't sleep well. You know that."
"Did you get an hour or two on the couch in there, at least?"
I motioned to the coffee machine and shook my head before filling a cup. He took it from me before I could drink it, "No. No more coffee for a while." He filled another four cups and asked for me to assist carrying them to the team. I did unwillingly and I slumped down.
"Oh my god, you're not having any?" Rossi asked me with surprise is his voice.
"I'm not allowed to." I motioned to Hotch.
"Great punishment." Morgan laughed.
"Oh! I need to call Sarah." I said as I stood and took my phone off the charger on the wall. I walked out as I dialled her number and held the phone to my ear.
"Hey Em." She greeted me. She didn't sound good.
"You sound terrible. Are you okay?" I asked as I walked outside. The sun gave me a headache as I walked into it.
"We've come down with something, Ainsley and I both."
"Oh, well do you need me to come back? My team isn't very happy with me anyway…"
"Why? What happened?"
"I didn't go to the hotel last night and drank 18 cups of coffee over the time they were all asleep to keep myself awake at the station."
"…How are you not dead?"
"I've already been asked that exact question. So do you need me to come home?"
"No, no. We'll be fine. Ainsley is doing much better than me so we're all good here. Anything new on the case?"
"I spent all night here and the only thing that I got was overly angry. I'm so freaking frustrated and we just can't find anything."
"I'm sure something will come up soon," I heard Ainsley in the background and smiled at the sound of her voice, "She wants to talk to you." Sarah said.
"Put her on." I said, still smiling.
"Hi mummy." Ainsley greeted me.
"Hey sweetie, how are you?"
"Sarah says we have a tummy bug."
"Aw baby." I frowned to myself.
"I miss you. When are you coming back?"
"I miss you too. I'll be back soon, sweetheart. Mummy's got to catch the bad guy first."
"Is daddy with you?"
"He's here somewhere but he's not right next to me."
"Tell him I miss him."
"I will honey," I smiled, "I've got to go now, but I'll call again soon, okay?" I said as JJ motioned for me to come back in.
"Okay, bye mummy."
"Bye sweetheart." I hung up and stood from the step. I followed JJ back in and walked back into the room where we resided to work.
"Another body has been found," Rossi said quietly, "5 year old Evelyn Nervas."
I sighed and looked away from them. Why couldn't we crack this?
"Do you want to come to the dumpsite?" Hotch asked me as he grabbed his suit jacket that he had since removed.
I nodded and walked out behind him, Morgan by my side.
The scene was disturbing, sickening. My stomach churned when I saw the small girl, not much older than mine. I looked around at the site. It was just off the road, a frequent place for people to hunt. It wasn't deep into the forest, only just visible from the road. She was in a shallow ditch, kind of like a grave, but she was in a different position again. The last two bodies were both in different positions too. I had pulled the sheet away from her face and walked away almost instantly. I looked around in the area instead of the girl. Morgan and Hotch examined the girl and her external injuries before following me deeper into the forest trees. I jumped over a small stream of water and walked through more.
"Where are we going?" Morgan asked me.
"I've seen things like this before. The last time something similar to this happened there were more bodies further in," I explained, "Oh my god." I breathed as I stopped dead in my tracks before walking over a cliff. I held the tree next to me to keep myself up and looked down, the height frightening me.
"Any chance there has been any dumps in there?" Morgan asked us.
"There's a chance, but you'd never find them," One of the local police officers said from behind us, "That water is deeper than you'd expect."
I saw something move out the corner of my eye and looked to my left. I walked that way and I knew Hotch had seen it too. He grabbed my arm to keep me still before walking in front of me. There, we found a little boy. One that was unidentifiable by the way his face was so mutilated. I gasped quietly at the extent of the injury.
Hotch crouched at his side and Morgan told the policeman to go get some members of the team to cover this body too.
I searched around this area too and stopped at a footprint, "Fresh prints." I said to my team members. Before one of them had a chance to come look, something crashed into my left side and took me to the ground. My back hit the dirt hard and knocked my breath away.
"Hey!" Morgan yelled as he chased after whoever had just tackled me to the ground. I felt Hotch's hands on my arms, pulling me back to my feet. I stood and stumbled slightly, my balance off but quickly regaining.
"What the hell just happened?"
"I'm going to guess that it one of the unsubs…" Hotch said, looking at me, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." I nodded. I heard a gunshot and fear spread through me. I ran towards the sound, Hotch at my side, "Morgan!" I called.
"Prentiss, stop," Hotch grabbed my arm, "Stay here; it's dangerous with guns around."
"That is the father on my children," I snapped before running again. "Morgan!" I yelled again.
"Yeah!" He called back. I ran into a small clearing and stopped, allowing myself to breath as I saw him fine, on one knee, cuffing the suspect that he had shot in the shoulder. There was a gun lying not far from him. I walked over and picked it up, handing it to Hotch as he put his hand out. He didn't want me carrying a gun.
"One down." Morgan said as he stood and pulled the man with him. Just the sight of his face sent shivers down my spine. He was terrifying.
Hotch stayed close to my side as we went back to the Portland station. He was unnecessarily worried about how I was going after the confrontation even after I had assured him that I was okay several times.
"So he was revisiting the dumpsite?" JJ asked for clarification. Hotch nodded and JJ moved her eyes to me, "Are you okay?" I realised that I probably looked like I wasn't. I had my elbow on the table and my head resting on two fingers are the massaged my temple.
"I have a headache but it isn't because of that."
"Is it maybe because you haven't slept at all in over 24 hours?" Reid asked me, "Or because you drank 18 cups of coffee?
"Probably both," I nodded as I looked at Hotch, "Please let me have coffee?"
He sighed, "One cup."
"Thank you." I said as I stood and walked towards the break room. I made coffee for me and then for everyone else too. I brought it back to them and sat down, sipping it, "Oh, it's like heaven." I mumbled to myself quietly after the first taste.
"Okay, so he visited the dumpsites again and it must have been multiple times because that boy had been there for weeks. He was one of the first." Morgan said.
"So he's reliving it all, but nothing in his profile suggests that either of them would do that, let alone the male." JJ said.
"Remorse?" Reid suggested. "Maybe he's mourning them in regret and guilt of what he'd done?"
"Or he was just appreciating it again." Rossi added another possibility.
"We're missing something." Hotch said.
"Yeah, the other unsub." I said.
"No, in the profile."
"Well we have one. Break him down and we've got the other." Morgan said.
"If their siblings or a couple and their close, he might not give her up," I said, "Or even just close friends. If I had committed murders with any one of you and I got caught, I would just take all the blame to save your arses."
"How oddly sweet of you." JJ smiled with amusement.
We talked it all out and searched through everything again, making the man in the interrogation room wait. We wanted to see how worked up he'd get. Eventually, Hotch decided it was time and I stood behind the window with Morgan, JJ and Reid as Hotch and Rossi tried to get the answers they wanted. They didn't get what we needed so they decided to test a new approach. Send the females in, see how that pans out.
JJ and I walked in confidently, talking to each other about nothing so he saw himself as nothing more than a man sitting in a chair. He wasn't a threat to us and he wasn't worth our time. Or at least that's what we wanted him to think. We had done this before and it seemed to work then.
"Like seriously, you're my husband; you should never be talking to me like that." JJ said as we walked towards the table. I had no idea how he was talking to her or if it was real or not. She just started the second she opened the door.
"Yeah, I mean, I have no idea what would happen if Morgan ever spoke—" I stopped midsentence as my eyes widened. Why did I say his name? Of all the men I could have made up, I said Morgan. I looked at JJ with shock in my eyes. The whole team, minus Garcia, would have heard his name come out of my mouth. He would have heard his name come out of my mouth.
JJ raised her eyebrows and glanced at the mirror window where we knew our team was before returning her eyes to me, fighting the smirk forming on her lips. I cleared my throat awkwardly and sat down. I ruined our chances of agitating him that way so I had to move onto a new tactic quickly.