Aitana felt utterly guilty having to miss the preliminary presentation of the newest case, but nobody would make it harder on her by being stingy about it. Her classes for the new quarter were slightly more overwhelming than the first.
"I promise I will get my act together," she declared once they were in the jet. She was quick to look over the file Penelope so graciously put together for her at the BAU.
"You're fine, Aitana," Emily rubbed Aitana's arm comfortingly on her way to an empty seat. Aitana hadn't even sat down, instead choosing to lean against the side of an empty seat to read the file.
They were heading to Kansas, right to the center of tornadoes, something Aitana silently dreaded. She was not one for tornadoes of any kind.
"If this unsub is using tornadoes as a forensic countermeasure, then Kansas certainly is the ideal setting," said Morgan.
"Tornadoes do pose a significant threat," Spencer chimed in, "During this year's super outbreak back in April, there were 336 confirmed tornadoes in just several days, resulting in over 300 lives lost."
"Hey!" Penelope's face popped on the monitor behind them.
"Tell us something good, mama," Morgan said, though he knew there wasn't much to say on this matter.
"Ok, so local P. D. Have ID'd your victims. I'm putting this all on your tablets if you'd like to follow along." Penelope gave them a couple seconds to gather the tablets before continuing. "First up is Jason Meredith, 16-year-old runaway from Garden City, Kansas. Mom said he took off over a year ago. Next up is Eric Janelle, 15-year-old foster kid from Wichita. He's been gone 3 weeks. Oh, both of these kids have records for possession and prostitution."
"They were street hustlers," Rossi remarked. "At-risk kids. This could be a sexual predator."
"An extremely violent one if the unsub is responsible for the damage done to the bodies, especially those missing limbs," Hotch said.
"Well, now, he could be keeping the body parts for some sort of fetish," JJ theorized, prompting Penelope to audibly gag.
"Oh, ok, eew! That is my cue. I'm here if you need me with my binary machines that don't say gross things!" And with that, Penelope signed off.
Just as the team began to put their tablets down, a decent turbulence rocked the jet. Aitana nearly slipped from her comfortable spot. It happened twice after that. Rossi even felt the need to do a silent prayer for their sake.
"I didn't know you were a bad flyer," JJ said, noting how pale Rossi had gone in these last minutes.
"I'm not. I just hate turbulence," Rossi clarified.
"You know, turbulence very rarely causes planes to crash," said Spencer, although Rossi still didn't loosen up.
"That does me absolutely no good at the moment. Thank you."
Spencer didn't let Rossi have a moment to rest before he started spewing out some facts. "What we really need to worry about are microbursts, sudden downbursts of air associated with thunderstorms. But a small craft like this, if we hit one of those at the wrong altitude —" He mimicked the sound of a crash,, going as far as gesturing it with a hand as well, "—pulverized."
Rossi was downright terrified with what he was hearing. The others were close to laughing. "I beg of you to make him stop," he pleaded with JJ sitting beside Spencer.
All JJ could do was shrug in that situation. Nothing stopped Spencer once he got started, absolutely noth—
"Hey Spencer, can you sit with me for a bit?" Aitana had stopped beside him with her file in her arms. "I have to tell you something."
JJ bobbed her head as she reconsidered her initial thought. Spencer didn't question Aitana; he simply nodded and moved with her to the seats at the end of the jet.
As soon as they sat together, Aitana spilled what she'd been holding in for a while. "She set a date."
For the first time in his life, Spencer had no idea what Aitana was talking about. "Huh?" It felt so weird not knowing — not remembering? — what she was talking about with him. Alarming, even.
"My grandmother — she booked a flight. It's official now. She's coming to see me dance."
"Oh." Spencer felt relief washing over him. The alarm went away as well. Aitana's grandmother had expressed interest in seeing her dance competition since it was the first time Aitana would dance in years. "Well that's great, isn't it?"
Aitana's face seemed far from it. "I told you Spencer. What if I'm not good anymore? It's been years…"
"But you've been practicing for months now," Spencer reminded her. He couldn't believe he was having this conversation again.
"I know!" Aitana let her head fall against the table with a thud! Spencer wondered if she would have a bruise on her forehead later on. Right now, her curly hair was splattered all around her head.
"Um, well…" Times like these, Spencer hated even more that he royally sucked at conversations like these. He wished he could help Aitana more but he seemed to have even more trouble with her in comparison to the rest of the team. He tried his hardest to come up with at least one decent thing to say to Aitana but she pulled her head up from the table too early.
"I'll have to practice more. I'll have to move some things around but I can do it." She nodded to herself, clearly reciting it in order to believe it. "Yeah, I can totally do this. Totally."
All Spencer did was nod with her but inside he felt completely useless for her. He didn't like it at all.
~ 0 ~
The scene was a mess. Aitana, Emily and Morgan walked through the crime scene with the lead detective on the case. It was a terrible sight. The tornado had taken everything around and chucked it out in random places — in pieces. Aitana couldn't help shudder every now and then.
"The guy was torn up pretty bad. Thought we'd find his arms, but we never did," said a detective as they walked through the dirt path, "Found him right over there." He made a nod up ahead but with the condition of the place, it was hard for the agents to pinpoint the exact spot.
"Well, the unsub definitely has his own mode of transportation," said Morgan as he glanced back in the direction they had come from. "This is way off the beaten path. And the first victim, Jason Meredith, was found over 30 miles away."
"And you say you were able to clear this place before the storm hit?" Aitana wouldn't hide her disbelief in the alleged claim. The way everything was destroyed made it hard to believe anything could be done prior to the tornado. "I didn't know you could do that for tornadoes."
"When we get enough lead time, we try to clear all the mobile home parks," said the detective, "The last place you want to be in a twister is in a trailer. We close off the main roads, too."
"Ok, so the unsub either found a way in or he was already here and he hid during the evacuation," theorized Emily, "That, or the body got sucked up into the funnel cloud and was thrown here from someplace else."
"Either way, he came into close contact with this storm," Aitana said,, "Maybe even close enough to put himself in danger. Or he waited someplace safe for it to pass and came back and dumped the body."
"No, I think the storm itself actually means something to this guy," Morgan's comment made the group pause.
"You don't think he's just using it to cover his tracks?" asked the detective.
"I played ball in college with a guy from Indiana. He said he and his boys used to get drunk and then chase storms. Said it was the closest they could get to the true power of God."
"I saw an F3 when I was in high school. He wasn't kidding," the detective agreed.
"People willingly chase tornadoes?" That time, Aitana didn't even attempt to hide her shudder. "What kind of morons do that?"
Emily spared her a smile. "Ok, so he's impulsive, probably young, maybe a loner with nothing to lose. We should be looking at actual storm-chasers. Where can we find them?"
"They mostly work with the university," said the detective. "You think this guy's educated?"
"Well, he knows enough about the weather to use it to his advantage," Morgan shrugged. It was the logical step from there. "So far it's working."
~ 0 ~
Returning to the precinct, the group regathered to relay what each side had learned. Unfortunately, it wasn't a lot.
The first victim only gave the group the idea that the unsub had been, at one point in his life, a street boy. From the morgue, they learned that the unsub tied victims and amputated them postmortem. The crime scene told them the unsub was almost an expert chasing tornadoes, knowing how to use them to his advantage.
By the next day, they had another victim to look at. This time the young man was in limbs, sprawled on the ground with the torso missing.
Aitana started to think it was better to stay in the precinct. The scenery and the limbs mixed together made things twice as bad. She could still feel the lingering chill of the past storm.
"Name's Gary Dyson," the detective read off his notes. "Sixteen. Runaway from Kansas City. A couple of my guys have seen him before. ID.'d him off the tattoos on what's left of his arms."
"This particular area get hit with a tornado last night?" asked Morgan.
"Thunderstorms came through. Warnings went out, but no twisters."
"And yet this place is still a mess," Aitana remarked, setting her hands on her hips. "But the weather's gotta be the trigger. He's following the patterns. We track the storms, we find the unsub."
"Forensic evidence has been washed away," the detective said as a means of discouragement.
Spencer thought differently. "But behaviorally, it's the most intact crime scene we've encountered so far. It's the same blow to the head, but no cuts, no abrasions."
"Except he's missing his torso," Morgan pointed out. "It was only a matter of time before he missed one."
"Tornadoes are extremely unpredictable and sometimes last only a matter of minutes before they dissipate. The fact that he was able to leave his previous victims directly in the path of one is astounding," said Spencer, putting a lot of emphasis on it to get his point across.
"So the conditions were perfect last night, but his tornado never came," nodded Aitana. "It's only been 4 days. He's accelerating. And the weather's driving him to do it."
"Guys, we know that fetishists are loyal to the body parts they take, but I think that this unsub is loyal to the whole of these parts," Spencer said as he moved around the limbs, eyeing them carefully for their specific position, "If you were to take the missing pieces from all the victims so far, you could almost assemble an entire body."
"Ah, so we're doing Frankenstein now…" Aitana blinked slowly, letting her hands come on her sides. The precise case just kept getting better and better.
With the new knowledge they has from the latest victim, building a preliminary profile was easier and quicker.
"We're looking for a white male in his mid- to late-20s," Hotch led the group first, "He's mobile and he travels great distances to follow storms. He's probably in a truck or a van."
"We believe he may live in that vehicle. It's probably beat up, maybe rusted from the elements," Rossi said next.
Everyone ignored JJ's cell phone going off. She quickly cut the call off anyways. "Jeffrey Dahmer, serial killer, was under the delusion they he could create young male sex zombies that wouldn't resist his advances," she then said.
"And when Dahmer's test subjects died, he kept their body parts as souvenirs," went Emily.
"Skulls, hearts, even genitalia," added Spencer.
"Restoring body parts is no small task. They're gonna get ripe fast," Aitana said, "He needs lots of ice, salt, maybe, something to preserve them. And he's paying for all that stuff somehow. He doesn't have the social skills to hold a job for long, so he's most likely a day laborer, handyman, or anything transitory."
"We think he's using the weather as a forensic countermeasure to destroy evidence, but we also think he might be some sort of symphoraphiliac," said Spencer, prompting one of the officers to interrupt.
"Sorry, symphora what?"
"Symphoraphiliacs — they're sexually aroused by disaster. Usually fires or traffic accidents. In this case, the weather must enhance his excitement."
Once again JJ's cell phone started buzzing. This time, she took off to go answer it.
"He hunts street kids, so he may be from a similar background," Emily went on, "And he's most likely uneducated, but he's still charming enough to engage his victims."
"We'll talk to the press," Hotch said both as a fact and as a warning for the other officers not to go anywhere near the media.. "You should warn any transient kids you might know. As this weather gets worse, so will the unsub."
The team quickly dispersed the rest of the officers to begin the search. Weather was indeed getting worse by the minute and so soon enough, their search in the night would come to an end.
"Hey, is JJ alright? I haven't seen her in a while," Emily said the others once they were gathered in the meeting room. JJ had been gone for a while, ever since they delivered the profile and had yet to be seen.
"Me too," Morgan just now realized.
"Maybe she's handling another assignment," Rossi said just as Aitana walked into the room.
"I'll tell you what I'm done handling," the brunette woman said and planted her hands on the table, "The media."
Bemused, Emily asked Aitana what was wrong.
"I hate tornadoes," Aitana spat, her lip curling with disdain. "Half the questions I got were about the tornadoes. Like, I'm so sorry but I can't control the weather." Her eyes looked up at the long windows high above them. The night was dark and yet constantly illuminated by the crashing thunder.
"You're scared of tornadoes," Rossi corrected her.
Aitana pointed at him. "Absolutely. I can handle anything else but not tornadoes. And then with this media stuff, it complicates everything even more. I can't get through to some newsites because of the tornadoes cutting the power off. And then, you know, you get the stupid questions about the weather."
"Okay, Sprinkles, why not have a seat," Morgan gestured to the open seat beside him. "I'll protect you from the big bad tornadoes."
Aitana rolled her eyes but her facade of annoyance was cut short when thunder crashed again and she jumped. The others chuckled.
"I want to go home," Aitana said with an unimaginable wide pout. She did indeed take the seat next to Morgan. The latter couldn't help but laugh again.
"Hey," Spencer came striding into the room with Hotch behind him. "I know how the unsub first got started." He went directly to the clear board at the end of the table and grabbed a marker. "So the first victim was found missing his right leg, the second, both arms, and the third had no torso." He drew a simple stick figure to represent the limbs they had found so far. "So that leaves the left leg and the head unaccounted for. We can assume the head would be the most difficult piece to find."
"That part would have to fit an unsub's fantasy perfectly," Rossi said. They could leave that for last on their list of priorities.
Spencer agreed with Rossi. "So he'd most likely save it for last. Now, what that tells us is there's a victim out there we haven't found yet who's missing his left leg."
"Or the unsub hasn't acquired it yet," reasoned Emily.
"True, but most body part collectors evolve to this level, and in many cases they exhumes bodies for parts before they start killing."
Bearing that in mind, the group called in Penelope to start the search.
"Garcia, can you look for grave robberies in tornado alley over the last 5 years?" Spencer directed as soon as she was ready.
"Okey-dokey. Searching. Oh…that's a shockingly big list. Who knew grave-robbing was so on trend?"
Unfortunately, the entire team did.
"How many of those involve the bodies of teenage boys?" asked Spencer.
"Uh... None."
"What about morgues and funeral homes?"
"Again, that is a list that should not be that big. Mostly stolen embalming fluid, though."
"It's often used like PCP, Garcia," said Morgan.
"I'm feeling optimistic about the youth of America. There are no teenagers involved in this either."
"Let's just skip to the grain then," said Aitana right before she asked Penelope to try a new search involving stolen body parts, more specifically the left leg.
"Ok, eew!" Penelope practically shuddered. "See, this is why I can't talk about how my day was at dinner. Breakfast, lunch. Aitana, you scare me."
"I wasn't the one who thought of it," grumbled Aitana, "Spencer did."
"Ah, that makes more sense."
Spencer deadpanned the phone.
Penelope went on to read the information she had found on their missing left leg. "A left leg was stolen off a body a year ago at the Riggio Funeral Home in Tulsa. They never found who did it."
"Garcia, what was the weather like in the area at the time?" asked Hotch.
"Uh, thunderstorms and tornadoes. An F2 cyclone hit right around there, and then the robbery took place after they evacuated."
"It's gotta be our unsub," Emily concluded much like the others had.
"Wait, there's more. The guy whose leg was stolen, he was a 47-year-old father of 2 who died of leukemia."
"That's a huge jump. Preferential child sex offenders don't usually stray from their preferred age range," said Rossi. Most of them were confused as well.
"It's not about the sex at all. He used the body from the funeral home to develop his M. O," said Spencer, "So he could live out his fantasy and kill in a storm."
"It still doesn't explain what or who he's building," Morgan reminded them of the big remaining hole in their case.
"That could range from a friend to a family member to a partner," Aitana shrugged. "Unfortunately we won't find that out until we get more on the unsub. Aka: the head."
~ 0 ~
As the night progressed, the storm grew worse. Aitana actually felt for Emily and Rossi who had been tasked with talking to the storm chasers near the local university. At the same time, though, she was thrilled that she didn't need to step outside the precinct. She would much rather lock herself in the conference room doing more research.
Outside in the bullpen, JJ was still trying to find flights home. Morgan and Spencer joined her out of sheer confusion of her presence.
"There's no flights anywhere," JJ informed them with a heavy sigh. Henry was out of the hospital, yes, but she still needed to be there with him. She couldn't really concentrate on anything else besides her son.
"Maybe the weather will be better tomorrow," Spencer said as a means of comfort. All JJ could do was nod and hope he was right.
"Okay, so, what do you guys need help with right now?" she asked in an effort to try and distract herself.
"We're waiting for Prentiss and Rossi to come back from the university," Morgan said, "And I think Serrano and Hotch are going over the media proceedings."
"Uh, not exactly…" said JJ with narrowed eyes as she watched Hotch leave the conference room.
"Aitana did say the broadcastings weren't going well," Spencer nodded, "They must have gotten side-tracked again with the weather."
"Mm, maybe we should go see what happened," JJ suggested.
Morgan was taking a few steps forwards but peering towards the conference room instead. "Serrano's still inside. She does not look very happy." He smiled knowingly.
"With the situation, who is," muttered JJ before taking off after Hotch.
Spencer went to follow when Morgan grabbed his arm, subtly keeping him back. "What are you–?"
"Hotch doesn't need all of us crowding around him," Morgan said, letting go of Spencer's arm. "I think one of us should go into the conference room. And by that I mean you." Spencer was making a face when Morgan went on. "Serrano said she's afraid of tornadoes and right now it looks like she's about to pass out from fear."
"That bad?" Spencer curiously asked. He tried leaning forwards enough to catch sight of the room but Morgan blocked his way.
Morgan shrugged. "Don't know, but maybe a few distractions wouldn't come bad." He patted Spencer's arm, giving him the space to go.
"What am I supposed to do?" Spencer cluelessly asked. Morgan went ahead and started ushering Spencer forwards.
"You're a genius – think of something." Morgan's wise words were of no use to Spencer.
Before he knew it, Spencer was walking through the door and startling Aitana. She looked back from the clear board with widened eyes. As soon as she saw who it was, she relaxed.
"Sorry," she bit on her bottom lip, "I'm a little jumpy right now."
Spencer thought Morgan was absolutely right. Aitana was pale as a ghost, ready to collapse out of sheer fear.
"Can I – do you want some coffee?" Spencer asked, thinking that at least a cup of warm coffee would be a kind of comfort for Aitana. Unfortunately, Aitana shook her head.
"My stomach is in literal knots," she said, rubbing circles over her stomach. "I think I should stay away from caffeine."
"Oh, um…sorry…" Spencer rubbed the side of his neck, feeling embarrassed that he wasn't able to think of something else on the spot. Morgan was right – he was a genius, why couldn't he think of something fast?"
"It's not your fault that I'm a scaredy cat," Aitana's voice was shaky. She yelped when thunder crashed. It further proved her point. "I'm sorry." She preferred to turn away to avoid further embarrassment.
Spencer felt for her. "It's alright. Everyone's afraid of something. And, actually, we need fear."
"Ha," Aitana's tone was full of disbelief.
"We do," Spencer insisted. "Fear is what helps determine how we stay safe. It's linked back to basic survival."
"Well, I'm trying very hard to stay safe then…or whatever…" Aitana was uncharacteristically sour and because Spencer knew it was from fear, he looked around for something.
This time, it came naturally to him.
"Hey Aitana, what did you find here?"
The question would of course make Aitana turn around. When she did, Spencer was sifting through some papers on the table.
"Oh, um, casualties of the tornadoes so far," she replied. She moved to Spencer's side, watching him pick up a pencil she left lying on the edge. "Don't tell me – you found a mistake?" She wouldn't put it behind her to make silly, stupid mistakes right now.
"Don't worry," Spencer said easily. He reached inside his left pocket and took out a coin.
"Are you going to buy something from the machines?" Aitana asked. Their attempts to order take-out had long been abandoned. They were running on the soda and chip machines in the bullpen.
"Maybe later." Spencer seemed focused on his pencil. He was rubbing the eraser furiously against the coin. Suddenly, the pencil was going through the coin.
Aitana's eyes couldn't have been any wider. "What the hell?"
Spencer smiled cheerily at her. He had her attention now. He showed her the full angle of the coin and Aitana swore the pencil was going all the way through the coin and yet when Spencer separated the two objects, the coin was intact.
"No!" She exclaimed, snatching the coin from him to examine it herself. "That's not – how did you do that!?" Her eyes were snapping up at him, mouth hanging in an 'o' shape.
Spencer couldn't help but laugh, albeit gently. "I told you I do magic tricks."
"No you don't! You're not a wizard!" Aitana stomped her foot yet started laughing herself. "This isn't Harry Potter!"
"No, it's not," Spencer agreed with her. He gently plucked the coin from her hand and in return gave her the pencil to hold. He put the coin down on the table and knowing that he was going to be doing another trick, Aitana leaned close to watch carefully.
Spencer rubbed a hand over the coin slowly and in circles. He then started lifting his palm off the table until only his middle finger rubbed the table. And then suddenly, the coin was gone.
"No way!" Aitana practically shrieked, pulling Spencer's hand right off the table completely to inspect herself. "How the – you are a wizard!"
"I'm actually not," Spencer said as if the news was heartbreaking to him. It elicited a soft laugh from Aitana. It sounded…nice.
"How do you do that?" Aitana asked through her laughs.
"Magic..."
"Oh, right, right," Aitana bobbed her head, "A magician never reveals their secrets."
"I mean…" Spencer shrugged with his own wide smile.
Aitana jumped with another crash of thunder. It drew her attention towards the windows again. She gulped. Spencer was fast when he left the room, coming back only a couple seconds later. Aitana hadn't even noticed it with the constant crash of thunder.
"Aitana," he called to her gently. Her gaze flickered back to him; he was standing right in front of her. He had the coin again and a sharpie.
"What are you…?"
"Just focus on my hands, okay?"
Aitana's eyes drifted to the windows for a second. "But the…"
"Trust me," Spencer insisted, motioning her to pay attention.
Aitana nodded and started watching him instead. He tapped the cap of the sharpie three times against the coin in his palm. At the third, his hand seemed to jump and suddenly the coin was gone.
Aitana's eyes dazzled at the magic. "Where's it…?"
Before she could finish her question, Spencer uncapped the sharpie and showed Aitana it was empty inside before somehow dumping the coin on his palm. He'd somehow gotten the coin to fall out of the cap after all!?
Aitana's dazzlement lit up her entire face. "Oh my goodness! You did that! You really did that!" She would have to get over asking how he did it because she would probably never understand. Plus, why ruin the magic?
Spencer was a grinning mess much like Aitana. It was odd how elated he felt seeing he successfully helped Aitana forget the ongoing storm outside. He didn't think he ever felt like that before. And when Aitana sheepishly asked him if he could show her another one, he was more than willing to keep showing her tricks for the rest of the night if it meant taking her mind completely off the storm outside.
~ 0 ~
That same night, the team got word that another boy had been taken, although with a huge difference from all the previous victims.
"So the younger brother of Shaun Rutledge, Billy, says that a young white guy in an RV attacked him with a crowbar in the rain," Aitana relayed her notes to the group as soon as she was done talking with the family. There were very big concerning factors that pointed to a spiraling from the unsub.
"He's changed his victim selection criteria," JJ voiced Aitana's thoughts. Penelope had already done some digging on their victim. "The boy he grabbed gets straight As, plays football, even volunteers at his church. So he wanted him so badly, he was willing to leave a witness?"
"Very," Aitana replied, "Billy says the unsub tried talking to them at least twice before attacking. And in different spots."
"Which suggests he's losing touch with reality and his delusions are starting to take over," said Spencer, prompting the concern to rise.
"What is it about this kid that was so attractive to him?" asked Emily. There was nothing specifically pointing to a clear answer.
"He was teenage and Caucasian like the others," Aitana said, throwing a thumb over her shoulder to point at the clear board. "Other than that, there's not much of a difference."
"So then what the hell is driving this guy?" Morgan was left to ask.
A few minutes of silence fell over the group as they worked to figure out the answer. In the end, JJ came up with a theory.
"What if he's trying to recreate someone he loves? It is an emotion that drives us to extremes. If he's trying to recreate someone, it's probably somebody he loved and lost."
"That would make sense," Aitana nodded slowly, "And Shaun was with his little brother…"
The group called in Garcia asking her to go over past victims and tornadoes in search of a victim that would fit their unsub's current profile.
"Okay, so there's only 10 victims with younger brothers who survived," Penelope informed them after a deep and thorough search.
"The unsub might have been a high-risk kid," said Hotch, "Garcia, how many of the survivors have criminal records?"
"I got two for you. First up is 27-year-old Justin Harris, had a DUI in 2008. Next is 22-year-old Travis James. Ooh, little troublemaker. Shoplifting, possession, and prostitution. Oh, my. And all when he was a minor."
"You got a home address or a vehicle registered in his name?" asked Rossi, thinking this would be their unsub, much like the others.
"Uh-uh. None."
Morgan went down a different path. "You got a photo on this guy?"
"It's on your tablet right now!"
Each of their tablets dinged with a notification. Morgan picked up his and turned the screen on. Aitana brought him the composite sketch that Billy had described of the unsub. It was a perfect match.
"In 2001, Travis James lost his big brother Tucker and his mom Jan when a tornado hit the McCleary Trailer Park in Enid, Oklahoma," Penelope briefly read aloud.
"That's just south of here," Hotch said "So our guy's a local."
Suddenly, the lights went out, leaving everyone in the dark.
"Hang on, Garcia. The power just went out!" Hotch warned the technical analyst before she decided to send them more information.
At the same time, thunder crashed. Aitana regretfully squeaked; she was back on the fear train. She startled again when she felt something on her back. Seconds later, she realized it was Spencer who had placed his hand on the middle of her back.
I'm such a child, Aitana said to herself. And yet she couldn't deny the comfort she felt knowing Spencer was right beside her. She preferred not to think more about it. Maybe the dark isn't such a bad thing.
The lights didn't return but the generators kicked in and allowed for the continuing use of the internet.
"Garcia, I think we're good. Keep going," Hotch instructed the blonde.
"Sometime before this evil tornado touched down, Travis, along with 5 other boys, testified against a one Roscoe Gulch. It appears that this Gulch character was a notorious pedophile in the area, and he was a resident of the same trailer park as Travis and his family. I'm looking at police reports now. It looks like brother Tucker had confronted this Gulch person lots of times. He even broke the creep's nose once."
"He was protecting his little brother," Emily nodded, knowing well that this must have been the reason the unsub took Shaun earlier.
"Ohh. And then the plot thickens. According to a statement from Travis, right after Gulch was acquitted, he and his brother went to Gulch's mobile home. A fight ensued. Travis said it was like his big brother went crazy. He heard tornado sirens soon after. He then ran to a drainage pipe nearby. After that, Tucker and Gulch somehow got trapped in the mobile home when the twister hit. Travis said he saw the mobile home get swallowed up by the tornado. And when he came out there was nothing left."
"Garcia, how old was Tucker when he was killed?" asked Morgan.
"Seventeen. He was found in pieces. It took his DNA and dental records to I. D. him. Travis went into foster care and he was reported missing in 2003. He ran away."
"Ten years ago his brother got ripped apart, and now he's trying to put him back together?" Rossi said, sounding utterly confused. "But why start killing now?"
"Garcia, send me current weather reports for the area, including radar images if you have them," instructed Hotch. He moved around the table to pick up a tablet.
"Ask and you shall receive. It is on your tablets!"
"With the weather in the area, he's going to be so excited, he won't wait," Hotch said to the others. "He'll take the boy to the closest area with the most activity."
When thunder crashed again, Spencer glanced at the windows. He paid close attention to the lightning now beginning to fall. It was all coming down quicker and stronger.
"It's Frankenstein," he realized,, eyes falling on Aitana who was doing her utter best to focus on her tablet and not the weather around them.
"What?" JJ prompted for the explanation.
"Aitana said it first," Spencer's words pulled Aitana's eyes off off her tablet.
"What I say?" she raised an eyebrow. "Besides my childish squeaks, of course."
"You said it way in the beginning — Frankenstein." Spencer blamed himself for not paying enough attention earlier. If he had, they could've ran with Aitana's guess long before other victims got caught.
"I say a lot of things," Aitana said nervously, "Half of them are probably stupid—"
"No," Spencer quickly dismissed such a statement. "You were onto it. The unsub isn't just trying to put his brother back together, he's trying to bring him back from the dead. He believes that tornadoes have the power to take life, so conversely, they should have the power to restore it."
"He genuinely believes in Frankenstein?" Aitana almost scolded herself for being so surprised. This wasn't the craziest case they handled.
"We need to get going now," Hotch directed the rest of the team to start getting ready.
They each gathered their thickest jackets, which weren't all that thick with this kind of weather.
They piled half and half in two cars and set out on the road. The storms were up and ready, getting stronger by the minute. Aitana would know — she was holding one tablet in her hand as Penelope updated them on the statuses.
"I found your trigger!" Penelope announced over the comms. "A year ago, a tornado ripped through a cemetery near Tulsa. One of the 53 graves that was disturbed was that of Tucker James."
"Ah, well, there's the reason for Frankenstein," Aitana said,, gripping the edges of the tablet. That last lightning sounded way too close to them. And unfortunately Morgan had to drive right to it.
"Garcia, those storm chasers at the university we talked to, they should be out in full force. I'm sending you their number now," they heard Hotch from the other car, "Tell them to be on the lookout for the unsub's RV. And, Garcia, patch into their radio chatter. They'll know where the storms are. We need to head into those areas with the most precipitation!"
"Mhm, so make a right at the next intersection," instructed Penelope, "It should be Pawnee Road."
"Hey, how exactly are we supposed to chase this storm?" asked JJ curiously. None of them had truly discussed the matter until now.
Spencer was more than helpful with the clarifications. "The unsub won't actually chase the storm. To get close to it, you have to get in front of it. It's a little like playing chicken."
"Well I don't like this game," Aitana promptly announced. She couldn't possibly sound anymore like a child and she was eternally grateful that nobody was pointing it out.
"Uh oh," they heard Emily say. "It's frozen!"
A moment later, Aitana did the same thing. She banged the side of her tablet, an old family habit when devices stopped working. "No internet! The weather must be affecting the upload."
"I'm patching Garcia in," Hotch informed the others. "Garcia, we just lost our Internet and we need you to guide us into the storm."
"Consider me your eyes and ears, sir!"
Aitana put her tablet down and resigned herself to stare out the front window. Morgan kept driving forwards until Penelope started giving them directions.
"Ok, guys, a twister has been spotted near Rose Hill just south of your position. The storm-chaser dudes are calling it a landspout!"
"We don't want that one," Spencer was quick to say, "Landspout tornados are relatively insignificant. Look for hook echoes on your monitor."
"Hey, hook echoes. Yeah. Ok, I'm gonna do that. Just tell me what they are!"
"Tell all of us please," they heard Rossi say, causing a small round of chuckles.
Spencer went ahead and explained it anyways. "They're swirling hook-like radar signatures that look surprisingly like what you'd expect them to."
Penelope did her diligence and searched for it on her monitors. "Ok. Uh... No, I don't see anything like that."
"They'll likely form in those red and violet areas on the map."
"I don't see anything that looks even remotely like that – oh wait! Yes, I see it. Oh, that's gotta be it!"
"Where, Garcia?" called Hotch.
"Oh, no, no!"
Everyone could feel the panic setting in Penelope's voice.
"What? What is it?" asked JJ.
"There are two!"
"We'll have to split up," Hotch decided quickly, "Which way, Garcia?"
"Uh, ok. Half of you can stay in your current heading. The other half, make a right on Meadowlark Road!"
"Morgan, take Meadowlark Road," Hotch instructed the other car, "We'll keep going."
"Got it." Morgan took a swift turn to the right as soon as it came up.
A moment later, Penelope called in again with the news that Morgan's car was the closest to their unsub. Morgan had no choice but to pick up speed despite the horrible weather. Aitana's heart raced as soon as she saw an actual tornado up ahead. It was far, yes, but to her it might as well be in front of her.
"What's that up there? Near the old house!" Spencer pointed to a flashing light in the same direction as the tornado Aitana watched.
"That's gotta be him," JJ said, spotting the shape of an RV next to the old house.
Morgan came to a stop as quickly as possible and then the four were climbing out just as fast. Behind them, the lead detective was also getting out of his car to join them.
"Travis James!" Morgan called to the brunette man across from them. "FBI! Put the weapon down!"
Their unsub turned out to be almost young looking. He was holding Shaun at knife – or jack hammer – hold.
"You get back!" Travis yelled at them urgently.
"We can't do that, Travis!"
"I said get back!"
"Are you hard of hearing or something?" JJ snapped.
Aitana silently drew back. Spencer figured it was the close proximity of the tornado getting to her and he thought it was just fine if she decided to back out. They could take it.
"Just let Shaun go and we can work this out!" Morgan insisted.
"That's his name, you know. He has a little brother, too," JJ called out. She had to scream to be heard. The tornado was closing in on them.
"We know you saw them when you attacked them," Spencer took his turn, "Let him go!"
Aitana was trudging around the RV as fast as possible but the wind was challenging her from all angles. Her hand slammed against the RV to keep her steady. She head to lower her head to avoid debris beginning to fly with the wind.
C'mon, c'mon, c'mon! She pushed against the wind, finally making a turn around the RV.
"Just go!" Travis exclaimed. "Get out of here, please!" The agents and detective could hear the franticness in Travis' tone, the urgency to complete his plan.
"Travis, Tucker would not want this!" Morgan insisted. "He would want to protect you like he did with Roscoe Gulch."
"That bastard was guilty!" Travis spat.
Aitana was coming up behind Travis, her body shaking both out of fear and cold and yet her hands were gripping her gun.
"Just let him go and we can help you," JJ said.
"We don't need your help!" Travis spat.
"Well if you don't, I'll have to shoot you!" Aitana called out, forcing Travis to look behind and see her.
"We need to get cover now!" The lead detective was telling the others. Thunder was turning stronger as the tornado grew only minutes away.
Aitana could feel the cold practically turn to ice on her back. Blinking steadily became hard as images came to her mind, images she tried her hardest not to remember.
"Travis, c'mon!" called Spencer, "You need to put the weapon down! The tornado's coming!"
Travis growled and shoved Shaun forwards. As soon as the teenager was free, JJ scrambled to pick him and bring him to their side. Meanwhile, Travis swung his ax at Aitana, forcing the brunette to fire. The bullet went straight to the ground but the force of her fire threw her back.
Travis didn't seem to care about anything else, not even the open shot he had at the agent. He picked up the plastic bag of body parts he'd collected and started straight for the tornado.
"Let's go! Let's go!" The lead detective yelled, now running for the nearest shelter which luckily had been unlocked.
Aitana had just sat up when someone grabbed her arm and yanked her off the ground. She fell into Spencer's arms, barely taking in a breath when Spencer was already pulling her towards the shelter. They were the last ones inside. The detective shut the doors right on time because the tornado was right on them. Wind howled and things crashed. All the group could do was wait it out, in the dark, and in the cold.
Aitana leaned back against the wall, her fingers digging in her hair. Images flashed in her mind again without permission.
Darkness. Howling. Agonizing wait.
Without realizing it, her breathing became the heaviest in the cellar. Everyone else did – she was going to start panicking for real.
Like before, Aitana startled at a foreign sensation. Someone's hand took hers and gave it a comforting squeeze. Aitana slowly glanced to her right and made out Spencer nodding encouragingly at her. She took in a series of shaky breaths, focusing on that and only that. But she did squeeze Spencer's hand like she was dying.
~ 0 ~
For the rest of the night, the team was remanded at the precinct. Even getting to their hotel was out of the question with the tornado. Still, things were more lighthearted now that their job was done for the time being. It was different…sort of.
When they returned, Aitana had sat herself down in the corner of the conference room and had not come out nor moved since then. She had taken to counting, both in English and Spanish – at least that's what Emily told the others when she walked past the room on one occasion. She was truly afraid, nobody would deny that.
"Hey."
Aitana stopped on 50 and looked up from the table.
Spencer stood there holding a coffee cup in his hand, motioning it to Aitana. "I found some tea," he told her with a small smile. "My choice would've been Chamomile because that's good for the nerves but I couldn't find that one."
"Thank you but I still can't eat," Aitana shook her head. "Or drink."
"Mm," Spencer started coming with a little sway that Aitana picked up on. "Not even if I had some…chocolate?" Because a moment later, he was taking out a small chocolate bar. "Dark chocolate helps reduce stress, anxiety, all that stuff…and it's actually really good. Most people don't really like the bitter taste but I think it's pretty good." He stood in front of Aitana's chair, holding out the two options in his hands.
"Now it really feels like Harry Potter," Aitana said with a little smile on her lips. "But I really can't stomach anything right now."
"It's your own brain telling you that. You should take just a small bite, or sip?"
Aitana figured she should stop being rude when Spencer had been a lot of help lately. One little bite wouldn't be so bad. "Thank you," she whispered as she took the chocolate bar.
"I'm sorry we're stuck here," Spencer said, watching Aitana take a bite of the chocolate. He really needed her to eat something. JJ had pointed out earlier that no one had seen Aitana eat since morning. They were halfway through the night now.
"It's not your fault. You're not in charge of the weather," Aitana said, cracking the bar in two. She held up the half she hadn't bitten from.
Spencer smiled and took it.
"I'm not a child, I promise," Aitana said, biting on her bottom lip. "I wasn't this afraid of tornadoes before…"
Spencer grabbed a seat beside Aitana and set his snacks on the table. He eyed Aitana, the profiler in him coming out whether or not he wanted it. "What tornado did this to you?" He asked.
Aitana drew in a breath. "I was still in WPP."
"Ah…"
"After I left San Diego, they stuck me in Kentucky," Aitana swallowed hard. "I lived there on my own in this house that was part of a rural town. I didn't make friends there, obviously after San Diego…"
"You didn't want to risk anyone else," Spencer understood. It was a sad logic.
"Yeah. There was a tornado warning and I had to take shelter by myself. I was underground for a whole night, on my own, in the dark…" She shook her head fervently the moment she felt tears stinging her eyes.
That made perfect sense to Spencer. It would feed a fear enough to cause this kind of fright. "And did that happen once?"
"N-o," Aitana choked the answer out. She had to lower her head. She was too embarrassed now.
It was dumb question to ask given Kentucky was known for its tornadoes but Spencer liked to think that maybe while Aitana lived there, she had only gone through that experience once. He was sad to see that it was not the case.
"I'm sorry about that, but you don't have to be ashamed of that," he told her. He lowered his head to try and catch Aitana's gaze.
"Spencer, I'm 27. I shouldn't be this afraid. This is stuff for my preschool-aged nephew."
"Age has nothing to do with fears," Spencer said, "It's actually pretty common. Take my fear for example."
"Germs?" Aitana managed a half smile. "Then I suppose I must be scaring living daylights out of you. You had to hold my hand for about an hour. Sorry."
Spencer laughed gently. He hadn't even thought about that. "I don't usually have the fear when it's about my friends."
"Still, you've helped me a lot today and I really appreciate it but I really should get over it."
"It doesn't work like that, unfortunately," Spencer shrugged. "We can manage it and sometimes with the right kind of therapy you can overcome it but it's not a big deal if you can't. If you can't, then you should at least let your friends help you out."
Aitana finally straightened up in her seat, raising her head up. "Thank you."
"Of course." Spencer broke his half of the chocolate bar and slid one piece back to Aitana. "You really need to eat."
"Alright." She picked up the smaller piece he had slid over to her and took another bite.
"So, why were you counting?" He asked afterwards.
"You know the whole 'count to 10 and the lightning will seem like it's going away' thing? Yeah, that's what I was going for. I just wanted to be extra sure so I counted in Spanish too."
Spencer chuckled. He liked her methods. "Right. Can I count with you?"
Aitana had taken another small bite of her chocolate. "You want to do that? It's boring."
"It's a mechanism for you to feel less afraid," Spencer shrugged, "I want to help. Can I?"
"I mean…of course, I just…I don't know, I figured you'd want to rest after this case," Aitana said, pulling one leg up on her chair. She rested one arm over her knee and proceeded to further break her chocolate up.
"I can read on the plane. Besides, maybe I can learn a little bit of Spanish with you?" Spencer's awkward smile made Aitana laugh. "It's the only language I can't really master."
"It's pretty easy," Aitana said in between chews. "The great thing about Spanish is that the way it's written is the way it's said unlike our dear English language."
"You can see why I get frustrated then," Spencer said, "So maybe we can kill two birds with the same stone. I will help you forget the tornado and you help me learn some Spanish."
"Okay," Aitana nodded, "Va."
"Va?"
Aitana grinned. "Your first Spanish lesson. It means 'alright'. Like, 'you want to go the store'? And you can say 'va'."
"Va…" Spencer repeated as slowly as possible, eyebrows knitting together as he learned the word.
Thunder crashed much too close for Aitana's liking.
"Va, let's start counting then," she said, taking in a deep breath. This time, however, she found it easier to focus than before. Every now and then, her counting would be interrupted with her own laugh. It was hilarious the way Spencer pronounced '13'. Trece.
She forgot all about tornadoes.
A/N:
As always, I have AO3/Wattpad accounts under "noblecrescent" and a tumblr account under "saiilorstars" if you'd like to follow :)