CHAPTER 83
SHE DIED BECAUSE OF ME
"So, let me just sum this up real quick…" Bryan said at the end of a twenty-minute rant, coming from Angela.
"You not only got to skip on classes, but you also went to work on a case and actually slayed? In Cuba, nonetheless!" He added.
"Is that jealousy I hear?" Angie smirked. It was so good to see him again.
"Pride. And yeah, jealousy, you bet'cha!" He laughed, fixing his uniform and making sure he looked perfect.
It was Sunday afternoon, which meant that another cut was probably about to happen. Trainees were once again asked to gather up at the Auditorium and nobody knew why.
"Hello, everyone." Dan greeted them and explained that they were going to take a test, the results of which, along with feedback they had gotten from their current training officers, would determine who had to go home that evening.
"Well, you're slightly disadvantaged, since you never got to take those classes." Bryan shrugged. "But I'm sure you're smart enough to crush this test anyway."
With those words, they were divided and asked to sit in the opposite sides of the Auditorium.
The test was virtual and it was multiple choice, which sounded easy until the Trainees realized that three out of the four choices they had per each question, were basically the same answer, worded differently. It showed that they needed to know the specifics, the way of saying things the right way, in the right order, if they wanted to pass.
Angie was calm while she placed her answers, but she read everything twice, very carefully, making sure she wouldn't make a stupid mistake. A few of the things were definitely from classes she had missed out on, for these few days she was away, but she was confident she could figure out the right answer anyway. Some of the things were popular topics in any criminal book she had read, so she focused on what she was being asked and gave it her best shot.
An hour later, Dan asked everyone to put their tablets down and to go wait outside while their results were being calculated and checked.
Half an hour after that, the Trainees were allowed back into the Auditorium. Most of them had done a quick coffee run, Angie and Bryan included, so they were now holding those in their hands, shaking.
Their results appeared on the big screen and Dan announced that the last few names on the list were done with the Academy. Along with those, he added a few more names of people who had gotten bad feedback that week.
It was stressful to cut so many people at once, but it was also good, for two reasons. One, having less people to train meant they had more materials at their disposal, while at the same time meeting the budget they had. Two, less people meant more attention on each one of them, individually. More feedback. More time with the training officers. It was not such a bad thing after all.
"Trainee Hunter?" Dan said, after having announced the extra names that got cut.
Angie's eyes widened. Her heart skipped a beat, if it even did beat at all, after she heard her name.
"Good job with the IRS." Dan smirked.
Toying with her was his favorite pastime. He knew she'd freak out if she heard her name, so he intentionally did that.
Angie waved at him awkwardly, deciding that if, someday, she had enough authority, she'd come up with the best payback for that.
"I told you we'd get him." Rossi walked over to Emily, who was sitting in the back of the plane, now on their way back home after they had closed their own case.
Her gaze was fixated on the clouds and her mind was elsewhere. She heard him, but she just did not reply.
"Emily, this is a win." He reminded her.
The UnSub was now in custody and soon enough he'd be locked up behind bars for the rest of his life. Their job was done.
Emily opened a folder and showed Rossi a photo of Adler, one of the victims, the boy they had seen at the morgue.
"I know…" He whispered, placing his hand on her shoulder and feeling her shift just a little bit, leaning closer to him.
"But you can't let this get to you. This is what we deal with all the time. Why is this one giving you such a headache?" He realized how immensely stupid his question was, once he said it out loud.
"Ah, because you can't help but draw parallels between this boy and her. But, you see, it was a completely different scenario. He was dead before we even joined the case-…" He got cut off by Emily, who finally decided to speak up.
"And she died because of me." She choked on her words, finding it hard to admit that. It sounded so official.
"No, Emily. She did not." Rossi insisted.
She just shook her head and leaned against the window, away from him.
The Trainees had the rest of the day off. Most of them wandered around, went to get food or to catch up on their reading for the next week.
Bryan and Angie got burgers and went to hang out with Amanda and Jack for a little bit.
"You worked a case so early in your training?" Amanda was impressed when she heard Angie's story.
"Well, I only had to translate, but then I was with the UnSub and things evolved." Angie shrugged, as if it wasn't a big deal.
"With him? Don't you mean you got kidnapped?" Jack corrected her.
"Not really. I did get in the car willingly. But it's fine. The IRS were amazing, they figured out my location and got there just in time." Angie smiled and took a big bite of her hamburger. She wouldn't admit it, but she loved junk food.
"Did you freak out? I mean, it was the first time someone dead smashed on top of you." Jack pointed out.
"I was fine." She replied calmly.
"You couldn't have been fine." Amanda could not help but laugh out loud. "The first time I was on a scene where someone got shot, I was a mess. I bawled my eyes out in the car afterwards. My face was white like a canvass and I only remember that one of my team members was splashing water on my face and trying to get me to talk. I was in shock, they took me to the hospital and had to give me some tranquilizer. They said I was shivering."
Angie shut her eyes closed while Amanda spoke. For those few seconds, she teleported herself somewhere else. It was dark, cold, she was shivering as well. A loud sound from her imaginary scene brought her back to reality, back to her friends.
"Mhh?" She muttered, realizing that Bryan was now nudging her.
"Jesus, I'm fine." She crossed her hands against her chest.
None of them believed her. They had already all witnessed murder, and they remembered exactly how nerve-wracking that first experience had been for them. Angela could act tough, but they knew it was about time that she'd snap and let the memory of what had happened, take over her.
Emily opened the front door to her apartment with a loud sigh. She let her Go Bag hit the floor, where it would remain untouched, for the next few days.
The first thing she did was to take a very long shower. She tilted her head, so that the warm water would hit her face before it hit her body. Running her tongue along her bottom lip, she realized that the water was not enough to take away the saltiness. The saltiness of her tears.
She sighed one more time, before applying a generous amount of shampoo on her hair. Maybe the taste of that would make it a little less salty.
It did not.
Desperate to not feel that taste anymore, she was contemplating on rubbing the soap bar against her tongue, which she later on decided was a very bad idea. It felt like no matter what she did, her tongue felt the salty taste. Her mind kept the memory. Her heart was heavy.
She got out of the shower, still not feeling clean enough. Was the dirt she felt, ever going to go away? Would she ever feel clean again?
"I love yooou, yu knw that, rght?" A text appeared on her phone and it made her smile. Temporarily.
"JJ, have you already been drinking? Check your spelling!" Emily replied, adding a bottle emoji.
"Sry, Henry and Mickey are suffocating me. Can't type." JJ texted back, along with an emoji of a mother with two boys.
Emily's lip quivered, for some reason. To her, JJ was the epitome of a great mother. She was everything Emily would have wanted to be. That thought added some more saltiness to the situation.
"Henry is raving about Friday night with you. He's so happy. Thanks for letting him stay over, right before we went on a case. You're a miracle!" JJ had just sent her text and while Emily was reading it, she received a call.
"I haven't even finished reading…" Emily whined as she picked up.
"Good. Means I can say it out loud – you are a miracle!" JJ smiled and her kid's voices were now in the background, playing with some toy in her room.
"ChayChay, you know it's always a pleasure to spend time with the kids. God bless them for not having inherited their dad's accent." Emily laughed and heard JJ clear her throat.
It was an ongoing joke at the BAU. Half the time they wouldn't even understand what Will was saying, but they loved him anyway. If he was worthy of JJ's love, who were they to judge?
"I love it when you call me ChayChay." She chuckled.
"I know what you're doing…" Emily finally called her out.
For weeks now, JJ had done nothing but act cheerful, so she'd make Emily a bit less stressed. She'd try and make her smile. Sometimes she successfully made Emily laugh. All at the cost of JJ's own sanity.
That case from a month ago had hit everyone hard. Emily was the one who got the worst of it, both emotionally and as feedback from her Superiors afterwards. The blowback was huge, the budget cut undoubtedly was connected to that case, as well. But through it all, JJ had been Emily's personal clown and she had never allowed her, or anyone else, notice even the slightest hint of worry on her face. As long as Emily was okay, JJ wasn't complaining. It's who she was. It's what she would always do, for Emily.
"…and I appreciate every second of it, ChayChay." Emily finished off her statement and JJ was already in tears.
"I love you so much." She whispered.
"I love you, too. And I'm glad I have the opportunity to tell you that, every single day." Emily felt equally as emotional, but she was better at hiding it, than JJ.
It was JJ who hung up the phone. They didn't need further greetings. What they needed to say to each other, had been said, if not with words, then with those tiny little gasps for air while none of them was speaking, but the line was still open.
Emily then went straight to bed, only to find it impossible to sleep. She kept on tossing and turning all night long and each time she closed her eyes, images of their latest male victim came up, followed by very vivid images from that one damned case, four weeks ago, the case that had potentially screwed up Emily Prentiss to the point of no return.
"Thank you for your kind hospitality, Richard." A female said, extending her hand to greet him on her way out.
Richard and Sasha looked at each other in confusion, but he shook that hand nonetheless.
"You know, I have to say, you really are the men they say you are. It was a pleasure doing business with you. We shall meet again…" The woman added mysteriously, walking through the spacious living room of his beach house, accompanied by a man in a dark suit.
"Boss, what the Hell?" Sasha whispered to him.
It didn't make sense.
A couple of hours ago Sasha had gone to the basement and she had watched Richard give this woman a pizza and a bottle of water, yes, that was nice of him to do, but this woman had been restrained and kept against her will. Unharmed, granted, but still, she was someone's hostage. And now, she was acting all nice and cordial, complimenting Richard on his dignity at work.
"Hey, if someone understands the things we need to do, on this job, it's me. No judgment here, okay?" The woman leaned in and whispered to him, on her way out. "I really do think you handled this gracefully and, for what it's worth it, I'm sorry I couldn't tell you who I work for. I'm sure you'll understand."
Richard raised an eyebrow. He had received a phone call an hour ago, informing him that he was holding someone's asset as a hostage.
"Wow, our neighbor's Intelligence Agency knows how to handle business." Sasha smirked.
She was impressed – within an hour of realizing that Richard was holding their asset, those people had sent another Agent and a car with a driver, to go get her out of there and it had all gone down so peacefully.
"Wait!" Richard sensed that the man in the suit, who was now accompanying her out, must be her Superior, or at the very least – her Handler; so he wanted to give her something back, as a 'thank you' for not mentioning the 'restraints' part of her morning routine.
"I cannot give you Bella. But I have people who are just as good and I'm willing to help you out, whatever your case is." He said with an apologetic smile.
"Thank you, but we needed Bella. She's already been undercover with the people we are trying to bust. They know her face and she was our only chance of getting back out there. We now have to start the entire process again, by pacing a new agent in and hoping he or she would not get killed or made." The woman sighed.
Richard understood just how long and painful that process would be, but there was nothing he could do about it. Bella was done with this life and there was no looking back. At least not as far as he was concerned.
"Well, I'm sorry this was all for nothing then. And I'm sorry for…anything, really…" He wanted to mention drugging her, holding her hostage in a basement and turning her finger into a purple stick from when he had twisted it, but he decided it was best to just say he was 'sorry'. She was surely smart enough to figure out he meant he was sorry about all of it.
"No need to be sorry. You were a gentleman. I respect you for what you did." She winked at him, but this time it wasn't in that annoying hungry kind of way. It almost looked like they were friends, having an innocent friendly conversation.
"Good luck with your case." He smiled.
"Good luck with that woman you said was not yet your wife. You know where to send me that wedding invitation." The woman said cheekily, remembering how Richard had worded that, when they had met a day ago, at the beach. She had gotten the impression that Richard was a bit bitter about not being with some woman that he was clearly very fond of. It didn't take a genius to read that, in between the lines.
"You better believe if I invite you to the wedding, I'm getting Margherita pizza catering for all the guests. As payback, you know." He laughed.
The woman then left with her colleague. Richard and Sasha didn't even know their names, but they had seen the badges and they had gotten the phone call from their base of operations. There was no doubt those were intelligence officers.
"I don't even know what to say…" Sasha laughed out loud once she was all alone in the house, just with Richard by her side.
"Let's put that on the long list of random weird things that have happened to us on the job and let's crack a bottle open, shall we? I mean, before you're unable to enjoy some wine with the Boss." He smiled, pointing at Sasha's stomach, in reference to her comments about wanting a baby.
"Sooo…" Sasha started off, dragging it out in the most annoyingly obvious way.
"Don't you even dare!" Richard laughed. There was no doubt in his mind what Sasha's question would be.
"Boss, why did you hire me?" She asked.
"Because you're extremely good at extracting information from people and you do it with a smile."
"Mhm…" Sasha nodded. "Sooo?" She repeated again, after she had proven her point that she was damn good at making people talk when she wanted to get information out of them.
"Sasha, I'm your Boss. Thread lightly!" He laughed, he was a goofball even when he tried to sound scary.
"Oh, come on! It's high time you lose the bimbos and get yourself a main chick, Boss. I just wanna know the details! Is she hot? Is she brunette? She must be, you don't like blondes. Thank God, because I'm blonde and, considering what I wore yesterday, it could have gotten weird…"
"Sasha, stop talking." He laughed at how she spiraled into a full blown monologue. She reminded him of Bella when she did that.
"So, who is she? Come on, Boss! We're technically not working right now. Can't you pretend to like me enough to tell me about your main squeeze?"
"You young people have the weirdest nicknames for partners…" He grimaced, remembering a few very 'out there' rap songs where the words 'main chick' and 'main squeeze' were used to describe some scantily clad women in the video clips.
"Sooo?" Sasha would not stop and at this point Richard knew that the best way to shut her up was to get her drunk and to give her the tiniest little bit of information possible.
"Fine. I may have had someone in mind when I said that, but it's nothing serious. Sadly." He hurried to open the bottle of wine, suddenly in desperate need of a glass or two.
"Yeah, didn't really think you could actually commit to someone." Sasha shrugged.
She had seen him with different women, in different social occasions. But she had never seen the same woman twice.
"Yeah, I didn't think so either, but that's until I met her. Sadly, it's actually her that's not so keen on committing…" He said slowly, making sure those words would be correct.
In a way, he was right. Lauren had been painfully clear about her fear of commitment. Wasn't that the whole reason why she always left people?
"Well, if you need someone to knock some sense into the bitch, if she breaks your heart, you know where to find me! I swear to God, Boss, if she hurts you, I'd drag her sorry ass, pregnant or not!" Sasha said, waving her fists in the air.
To anyone who didn't know what Sasha was really capable of, it would look like some dumb blonde bimbo was trying to act tough. But to Richard, who had seen her literally drag grown men around, kick doors down and use those fists to defend herself, it looked like just another day, another scene on the job. Plus, he had no problems picturing a very pregnant and very pissed off, vindictive Sasha, dragging some other woman's ass across the floor. It seemed like something Sasha would do.
"That would not be necessary, but I do appreciate your concern." He kept on laughing, finally handing Sasha a glass of wine.
"To my wonderful Boss who looks like a smitten punk, with that dumb smile on his face as he tells me about some woman who got him to act all silly, like that." Sasha suggested a toast and Richard shook his head.
Sometimes, Sasha was so spontaneous and weird that he simply didn't know how to handle her. It was one more thing she did, that reminded him of Bella. The two of them had spent a lot of time together, back in the days, so somewhere along the way their characters had started to blend a little bit. Sasha had started talking like a punk, like Bella sometimes did when she was feeling it, and Bella had started being super forward with her statements, not giving a damn if people would hate her words or not, as long as she stood by what she believed in, just like Sasha always has.
"I should maybe call in a conference with everyone who works for me and I guess you all could use a refresher on how to treat and talk to your Boss, you know, just some basic work etiquette stuff." He laughed, clinking his glass against hers.
While it was true that Richard was very high up the ladder, it was also true that a handful of the people who worked for him were actually pretty close with him. They almost felt like friends, with the exception that Richard was the Boss, which was a fact that often didn't even feel real, not with the way they spoke to each other.
He really did not mind, though. He enjoyed having this kind of relationship with those people.
When their glasses were empty, Richard eyed the empty pizza boxes that they had left on the table, outside.
"Alright, I can't take this anymore. It's a beautiful house and we've managed to turn it into a frat house. Come on, get up. We have some cleaning up to do and then, I guess, we shall drive back to Paris." He suggested and Sasha grabbed the glasses and the wine, stealing herself a small sip, right from the bottle. Richard had been right about something – soon enough Sasha would have to stop drinking, if she got pregnant, so she'd make sure to enjoy the last moments of sweet wine relief, as much as she possibly could now.
"Boss, here's her pizza box." Sasha said, extending a hand to him and handing him the hostage's box that she had retrieved from the basement earlier.
"Oh, she didn't finish it?" Richard frowned, realizing something was inside the box when he heard the sound of an object, rolling left and right. He figured it was a dried out piece of the crust.
Curiosity got the best of him and he cracked the box open, finding something else inside.
"Ehm, what the Hell is a pen doing in there?" Sasha raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I know! All spies have a pen on them, you know, she must have planned on poking one of your major arteries and letting you bleed out to death, the next time you went down there to be all smug and demanding!"
Richard shook his head again. Sasha had a vivid imagination.
"Sasha, what have I taught you?"
"That when there's a pen, there's a message." She replied, this time a bit more seriously.
After placing the wine glasses and the bottle in the sink, she looked at him and opened the cover of the pizza box.
"You trained me well, Boss!" She smirked, realizing that she was right about the message.
Sometimes, Sasha missed those days when Richard had been her Mentor. Practically everything she knew about this job, was because he had taught her.
Richard turned the box sideways, so he could see the text clearly.
When he started reading it out loud, he was surprised.
"They will soon come for me. I just hope that when they do, I walk out of here on my own and not with Bella by my side. It's not just a job. It's a hit. And there won't be any back up for your girl. I owe you this much of an explanation. Keep her safe. I'm a mother, I know the lengths one could go to, in order to protect someone they love. And I'm sorry, I had to come here and do my job. I just hope I fail at it."
Sasha was confused. That woman had looked tough as a rock, but she had managed to leave them a message like that?
"Killer with a conscious?" She said when Richard failed to comment on what he had just read out loud.
"She's not a killer, Sasha. She's one of us." He corrected her.
"Hate to break it to you, Boss, but what exactly do you think we are, if not that?" She said challengingly, to which Richard could not reply with anything else but a sigh.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
"rmpcmfan" I replied to your reviews on inbox :) I just forgot to mention: GOOD CATCH about the parallel with Clara and Emily's reactions and interactions with Angie! I can assure you, NOTHING is coincidental in this story *wink wink* Every twisted little comment that seems odd, is a carefully worded clue :P and will one day make sense!
"zhangxinna" Hmm, ok Detective...your theory would make sense, I agree, it ties with how Angie refuses to utter a word about her family and upbringing. However...(just to avoid maybe confusion in later chapters), I can confirm that Clara was not talking to "Jess" on the phone and "Jess" is not "Bella's" mother :)!
"Nichole" Ah, I know she shouldn't have risked it, but since she needed to get away instantly, Lauren's passport was the only fake passport she had on hand, so she made the decision to use it. Plus, I needed to tie Lauren into the story somehow :)!
Well, whatever the plot outcome might be, I hope you all enjoy reading about it. Remember that this is a free platform, for every "writer" to freely explore their ideas, in any way they wish. There's de-aged fics, vampire Agents and all sorts of ideas around here for anyone to choose to read or not. (Btw there won't be anything supernatural in my fic, just a note hehe).
