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Go to SETTINGS and find the E-MAIL OPT-IN section and click YES ! (Once every 6 months!)

Hope this helps and I hope you enjoy the updates from all of your favorite stories and authors :)!


CHAPTER 143

DON'T BE SCARED. I'M RIGHT HERE.

"You know, I was never a particularly big fan of yours, but this…wow this makes me appreciate you even less." Angie stated when Luke finally allowed her to open her eyes after pulling her in the lobby of a huge cinema.

This was his big surprise!? Angie would rather be at the tactical driving range with the instructor who hates her.

She despised going to the cinema. She hated movies with a passion. It was a huge waste of time and she would have to be heavily sedated and restrained, in order to sit through even half a movie. It was just not her thing. At all.

"Hey, give it a chance." Luke remembered that Angie had mentioned her hatred towards cinema, during the NYC case, but he was trying to play a different angle.

"I have. I hate it. The entire place would smell like popcorn, there will be sugar high kids everywhere, dumb people would keep on asking directions to their screening hall, instead of looking up and reading the damn signs and following the arrows, the drinks will be overpriced, the guy at the bar will be pissed off because he'd be too damn tired to count all the small change in the cashier's after his shift, there won't be a functioning cloak room, hence you are just bound to trip over someone's dumb ass jacket on your way to your seat, in the dark, because they never crack a damn light in those rooms and it's just annoying and who would really want to sit on a chair without looking at what might be on it, huh? What if there's popcorn or worse – a Coca Cola stain on it? Or chocolate!? Oh God, eww, chocolate! And what if I'm wearing white pants to the cinema? Nah. Not happening. I don't like the cinema!"

After that monologue, Angie inhaled deeply and calmed down a little bit.

"Wow, she's passionate…" Luke whispered to himself, looking at her.

He could not believe the full-blown discussion she had created, over a movie. She reminded him of Reid, although his reasons would have been a tad bit more scientific, while Angie's were connected to smell and stains.

"Well, I could always drive you back to your dorm room…" He smirked, also remembering how Emily had once mentioned that the best way to go with Angie was a bribe. That or psychological torture.

"On second thought, I'm not wearing white pants!" She changed her mind, as if the pants were the main reason why she had been so adamant to entering.

The second Luke opened the door for her, she cringed. The nauseating stench of freshly popped corn was too much for her to handle.

"Want to choose the movie?" He asked her politely.

"It doesn't really matter. I'll hate all of them equally as much." She replied with a shrug.

Reading the posters, she evaluated the options. One movie was about a blonde girl with superpowers, who was an astronaut. It was also a teen movie.

The other poster had three dogs on it and that was enough to put her off. She did not like animals, dogs especially.

Third option was some documentary about a war. Not her vibe, at all.

Then there were two movies in 4D, but they were only for kids and given that it was almost eleven o'clock in the evening, those were not offered at that time.

Luke was following her eye movements, desperately waiting to see a sign of approval. He saw none of that.

"Hey, what about this one?" He pointed at a thriller, about a murder in a small town and the following investigation.

If anything in this world, anything at all, could make Angie seem a tiny bit interested in a movie, it would be a plot like that one.

"Mark my words - you do not want my presence during the screening of that…" Her words did not make sense to him at that moment, but they would, a little later.

"But it sounds less lame, compared to everything else!" He said to her, trying to bribe her.

"No offense." He muttered to the girl at the ticket box. He hadn't meant to offend her job or the place she worked at.

"Fine." She put her hands in the air, as if he was about to arrest her.

"But I'm paying my own ticket!" She said, leaving no space for arguments there.

"That would be 12,99 each." The cashier girl informed them when Luke requested two tickets for the 11 pm screening of the chosen movie.

"Is this a joke? Does it come with a personal masseuse and a bottle of fine red?" Angie was shocked.

The last time she had been to the movies it had cost 4,99 and it included a tiny pack of marshmallows. It was also in England, many years ago, and it was the Teen Thursday promotional pack.

"Here, let me get this?" He suggested, swiping his card for both tickets.

Angie let him do so, because the small amount of cash she had in her bag was not enough to cover her own ticket, so she literally had no other choice.

"You can pay me back by keeping me entertained in there." He smirked, meaning that she'd surely be fun, with all the whining about not wanting to be there, and possibly her occasional commentary on what Hollywood did wrong, in the movie.

"Sir, we don't condone this type of behavior in the cinema!" The ticket salesgirl scolded him instantly.

"Yeah. Eww! Pig!" Angie slapped him across the chest and stormed off, pretending to be offended by what he had said, right before the other girl had read his words so wrong.

"What the Hell?" He called, running after her.

"Relax. I was just messin' with ya. Poor girl went white when she heard you say that." Angie laughed it off once he caught up with her.

On their way to the screening hall, he noticed all the things she had mentioned she hated about cinemas worldwide. The running hyper teens, the smell of popcorn, the people asking for directions. She had been right, after all.

Luke had never been much of a cinema type of guy. Having grown up in the boroughs of New York City, he liked to play basketball and to run around with the other guys, maybe hop a few bars in the weekend, get himself a hot chick to flirt with.

"Hold on!" He said when they were inside and Angie was about to sit on her assigned seat.

Like a true gentleman, he used the torch of his phone to illuminate her seat for a couple of seconds, just enough for her to check if it was clean.

She blushed in the dark, once she sat on what she was willing to assume was a surface with reasonably high bacteria levels. She tried not to think of whose greasy hands and sweaty bum cheeks have touched the weirdly textured, scratchy fabric that the seats were made of.

"For the record, we could have had two drinks each, at some sleazy bar with low prices, instead of paying twenty-six dollars for this torture. I'm just saying." She whispered to him.

Luke had one simple aim - making Angie experience something that was out of her comfort zone. Plus, he had one more reason why he needed her to physically be at the cinema, at that moment.

The movie hadn't even started yet and all she could hear was people's loud munching on the crunchy disgustingness that the popcorn in their hands was. Granted, everyone liked to eat their popcorn while it was warm, but still, it was annoying.

Luke had tried to ask if she wanted something to eat or drink, from the bar, but Angie had disregarded that. Seven dollars for a fizzy drink was way too overpriced, in her opinion.

"Who would pay for that?" She asked after one of the commercials, for another movie.

When their movie of choice started, people were still fidgeting and making way too much noise, opening individually wrapped candy. It was getting on her nerves.

She tried to sit back and relax on the seat and she did her absolute best to be quiet and normal for the first five minutes of the movie. After that, she found it impossible to not be herself.

"It's obvious the sister killed the dude. Come on, poison is the most common weapon of choice for female killers. Plus, everything about the crime scene suggests a close personal connection between the victim and his killer – no sign of forced entry, two cups of coffee on the bedside table, which, come on, DNA testing would take twenty minutes to give us the identity of the killer, so do we really have to sit out the next hour and a quarter and pretend like it's not her?" Angie said pointing at the main character in the movie.

"Also, statistically-…" She then went on a rant about women killers and the probabilities of them killing someone they knew, rather than targeting a random victim.

"Shh!" Someone shushed Angie and she scoffed.

"Let's just…watch in silence, okay?" Luke tried to say it nicely, but she really needed to zip it before they'd get thrown out.

Two more minutes later and Angie could not hold it in anymore.

"That tiny moon pendant that they zoomed on when they showed us the crime scene and the body, it's from the sister's bracelet. She had it on in the second scene of the movie, the flashback to the Summer in their beach house when they were kids. So, her rage must be driven by something that happened in their childhood. Maybe she had been neglected, because of her perfect little brother, who got the good grades and was the athlete in the family. Classic pent-up jealousy-driven sibling rivalry, turned into murder." She tried to speak more silently this time.

"Angela, just watch the movie." Luke urged her.

"Why? They did a lousy ass job at hiding the killer's identity!" She countered.

"That's not the point." He sighed.

She was a piece of work, for sure.

"Then what is? Tell me, do you stick around a town after you've solved a murder, just to wait for something else to happen?"

He thought for a second and she was right - solving a murder meant that everything instantly went back to normal, for the team, and they were on their way to the jet right away.

But this was a movie. It was meant to be seen from beginning to end, preferably without commentary.

"See?" He pointed out a scene where they were making someone else look suspicious.

"Nope, that's one of the numerous red herrings, to keep dumb people guessing. I'm telling you – it was the sister. Look at her behavior, she clearly shows psychopathic tendencies. Look at how she changes moods so quickly and how freaky her eyes look in certain scenes. It's like she flips a switch and turns into a different person." She said, having watched somewhat intently.

"She could have bipolar disorder. Now shut up and watch the damn movie." Luke almost begged.

He kept on checking his phone and Angie thought he might be waiting for a text or a call, but in reality he was only checking the time, praying that 45 minutes would go by quickly. That was all the time he needed to keep her inside that cinema for.

Fifteen minutes into the movie she was enraged.

"Who produced this? I am personally offended by their lack of research! A psychopath would not show such behavioral issues, as they're showing. Way too inconsistent, they're all over the place. Didn't a professional consult them during production!? I blame Hollywood! Ugh!" Angie sighed and sunk into the seat.

Maybe if she closed her eyes she could go back to having that awful, confusing nightmare again. It would certainly be much more entertaining than having to watch this movie until the end.

"What!?" She gasped silently when a second body was found.

"Gunshot? Like, seriously? No way this was the same killer! MO doesn't match and victimology could not be any more screwed up. This movie offends my intelligence and every book I've read, along with its authors who have spent years in deep research on the topics!" She whispered to Luke.

He could not deny that she was spot on, about everything she had said. He was dreading this movie as well, but he needed them to physically last there for twenty-nine more minutes.

"Sir, I'm sorry, but I have to ask you to leave." A tall guy came over to their row and tapped Luke's shoulder before he spoke.

"We're sorry. We'll keep quiet." Luke informed him, placing a hand on Angie's knee and praying that it would make her stop talking, at least while the guard was near them.

"We've received a complaint and I'm afraid I can't let you stay here." The guy said sternly.

"Outrageous!" Angie stood up and pretended to be offended.

She walked towards the exit quickly, followed by Luke and the guard.

Once they were outside, thus not disturbing anyone anymore, she threw a hissy fit.

"We came here to enjoy this movie and we get kicked out for being passionate? About the movie, mind you!" She added with a sly smirk.

"We paid good money, too! And this is one of the top cinemas in the area. Well, it won't be for long when I tell my Boss to re-think his generous annual investment in this infrastructure! This is just…it's unheard of! I am offended and you better make sure I'll be filing an official complaint against the cinema and the employees, starting with you, Mr. Kareem." She read out his name tag and the guy, as big and muscular as he was, felt intimidated.

"Miss, we-…"

"There is nothing you can say to change my mind!" She interrupted him instantly and played the offended bratty girl.

"Miss, can we, perhaps, interest you in a full refund?" Another man, elder, with a costume and no name tag, came over and tried to defuse the situation.

Luke was in the middle of it all and he didn't know what to do. His cheeks were blushed and took every bit of restraint he had not to start laughing hysterically. Trust Angela to put them in a situation like this. Also, he was embarrassed to the point where he rationed like a five-year-old child – 'If I stand here quietly, maybe nobody is going to notice me'. It was working out for him.

"This is not about the money! It's about the disgusting way you treat your customers!" She shook her head, folding her arms in front of her chest.

"We can offer you a full experience at the bar – drinks, snacks, anything. It's on the house. Please? It would be a shame if we let this situation turn into a problem, for both parties." The elder man said with an apologetic smile.

Angie figured out he must be some sort of a Supervisor, or even a Manager there. It had taken him less than a minute to run by their side and to get involved in what was now a full-on scandal, outside the screening room, for new customers to watch.

He had been notified of a verbal fight and a situation, so he had walked over and after hearing about her Boss' investment in the cinema, he was now trying his best to get her to re-think that complaint.

After he added to his apologetic offer of freebies, Angie accepted and stormed off to the bar.

Luke got his money handed to him, in cash, while Angie was ordering herself some Coca Cola and paprika-flavored chips and a large bag of sour candy.

"Wow, you do know how to get free stuff…" Luke commented when he joined her.

He sat down, with a hand over his forehead. He had seen women pull a scene in public, but never to that extent, with this ease.

"Let's just say that it's basic survival skills, for someone like me." She smirked.

There was so much he didn't know about her and about the things she'd been forced to do, to get food for herself, in different moments of her life.

"Stop giving me the judgy eyes, please. I know for a fact that you hated the movie, too." She chuckled, sipping on her dink loudly.

"Yeah, I have to admit it was a dumb plot, dumb execution and dumb scenography. And the actress wasn't even that hot." He shrugged. There was no point denying it.

"I'm just sorry you weren't having any fun." He added.

"On the contrary – I love getting kicked out of places! Usually by 'disorderly conduct' they mean something else, but this time it was fun, too." She smirked, making it sound like she had done God-knows-what with God-knows-who, in public.

She did have the tendency to augment the reality just a tiny little bit, as she spoke.

Surprisingly, she felt her phone vibrate inside her pocket. She never really paid it attention and she would never check for messages, since literally just one person in the world had her number.

She smiled, reading an incoming text from Emily.

"Darling, how are you holding up? Call me if you need anything. Any time."

Even if she needed her, she would not call. Emily must be sleeping at that time. And then Angie realized that if it was almost 11:30 pm for her, it must be really late at night, for Emily, on the other side of the world.

"Thanks, I'm good. Had the afternoon off, did some soul searching…Didn't find anything, but I'm now hanging out and trying to act like a normal person." Angie texted back quickly.

For someone who wasn't fond of carrying a phone, she sure was fast when she typed and she wasn't really looking at the screen, as she did so.

"Hanging out? With Bryan? Where are you, guys?"

Emily texted back instantly. Her curiosity was killing her.

Angie replied with a photo of the cinema main hall, with the ticket booths and the movie posters everywhere.

"NO WAY!"

Emily had kept her reply short. There wasn't much else she had to say about it. She knew Angie would not be caught dead, at a cinema.

"Yeah. Don't worry, I haven't turned into an ordinary boring person by being here. We got kicked out 15 minutes into the movie. As you might guess, it was my fault. We're now having freebies at the bar, it's kind of cool."

Emily tried not to fuss about it much, but Richard, sleeping next to her, felt her movement as she turned sideways and sighed, getting ready to reply to that.

"Honestly, can't say I'm surprised. How did Bryan react?"

Angie smirked. It was the second time Emily was trying to pry information out of her. She refused to give her the satisfaction of telling her she was not with Bryan, at all.

"Scratch that! You should have seen how quickly the Manager ran to where I was acting like a brat. It took me, like, five seconds to get a full refund and a huge apology. Gosh, men are such pushovers!"

Angie laughed out loud, just as Luke was sitting back in his seat. He had walked away for a minute or two, in search of anything with alcohol around them. Sadly, the bar did not even offer beer.

"Oh, so you do have a phone?" He asked curiously.

"Emily insisted that I'd keep it. And no, you can't have my digits." She said sweetly.

"Seriously? I thought the date was going well…" He laughed, dramatizing a bit, since he figured it was what Angie responded to the best.

Weirdly, she appreciated his joke.

"Maybe if you take me home in one piece, and I mean alive and breathing, too; I might consider giving you a fake number to call and make a fool out of yourself tomorrow." She smirked, finishing her drink and stuffing the pack of candy in her bag.

She had left the blanket in his car, and she was now carrying a nearly empty big bag on her shoulder. It hadn't been her brightest idea to keep it on her. She should have left the bag in the car, as well, but she had her wallet in there, somewhere on the bottom, and she kept a small hairbrush inside, too. Angie refused to walk around, looking like a Neanderthal, if her hair got fizzy or knotted. She'd always slick it down, brush it and make it look nice. Plus, she carried a little pochette with some basic make-up essentials, so the bag had to be with her, at all times.

"Angela? Is everything okay?"

Emily texted her again, making sure it wasn't weird that they cut out their conversation without saying Bye.

"Yeah. Sorry, I was shooting lines with this guy who ripped my clothes off earlier, by the swimming pool. Or was it the guy who gave me the free vodka shots? Can't remember. Anyway, gotta go."

Angie replied, feeding Emily's worst fears.

"Don't you dare pretend you are anything like me when it comes to bad life decisions at such an early age! Stay safe and I'll talk to you tomorrow."

Emily replied quickly. Oh, Angie had no idea the things Emily had done in the past.

Angie put the phone in the bag and directed her attention to Luke who was happily sipping on a Fanta and giving her a moment to text back.

"Why did you invite me here?" She asked curiously. "And please don't give me some sappy version of the truth."

"You want the real truth? Okay. I saw you sleeping on Emily's couch, in her office, wearing her clothes and drinking from her bottle. Plus, you woke up sweating and distressed from what I can only suppose was a nightmare. I saw that as a cry for help and I just wanted to get you as far away as possible and to maybe distract you a little bit."

She appreciated his honesty. Not many people ever had the balls to be honest with her. She was sick and tired of being lied to, constantly.

"So, you took me to the one place that is worse than any nightmare I could ever have!?" She looked around and she knew the cinema was a much worse experience, for her.

"Not exactly…" He trailed off mysteriously.

As he stood up and started walking away, without saying another word, Angie found herself following him.

Mystery? Count Angie in! She loved being challenged to find something out and the way he left something unspoken made her get up and run after him. Also, because her some of her stuff was in his car and she had no money to get an Uber to get her back home, anyways.

"Yo, car's out there…" Angie pointed at the opposite direction as to where she saw Luke heading to, after they walked out of the cinema building.

He checked his phone again and Angie found it even more suspicious now. For the last few minutes at the bar in the cinema he had constantly kept an eye on his phone and so far she had figured he was keeping track of the time. But…weren't they leaving now? What was the rush?

"Late for something?" She asked curiously when he just kept on walking, forcing her to either catch up with him or stay back and wonder where the Hell he was headed at.

"Not yet, but we might be if you don't stop asking questions." He said with a smile.

Angie looked around. It was like a complex of a few buildings, with a shared parking lot. The biggest building was the four-story shopping center, then there was the cinema, then next to it there was a one-story building which was a gym and then a few others. She made out the words 'bowling alley' and 'drycleaners' on the smaller buildings, but some were still a mystery and Luke was heading to one of them that had the smallest sign on top. Barely visible in the dark, as it was now almost midnight, Angie could read a name.

"Insomnia." She read it out loud.

"Oh my God, if you brought me to a strip club, looking like this, Imma be real mad at'chu!" She informed him, instantly playing the role of a feisty girl with an attitude.

Looking down, she saw a plain shirt, a black jacket and a pair of pants. She looked like a twelve-year-old boy and she would not make a public appearance at a club, any type of club, looking like that.

"Relax, it's not a strip club!" He informed her.

"Awh!" She pouted, somewhat disappointed.

It was the last reaction he had expected of her.

"Well, if you give me those digits, I may share with you my favorite strip joint in the area, someday." He teased her.

"You do realize I like watching male strippers, don't you?" She raised an eyebrow.

She was only just saying that. In reality, she'd rather see nobody naked, sweaty and rubbing themselves on her or on people around her. It sounded disgusting.

"You know, if we ever get a case in Vegas, or nearby, there's this club you'd enjoy. Male strippers only. It's where most bachelorette parties are held at. Prentiss loves that place!" He said automatically.

"And you know I'm not part of your team, nor will I be. So, if you guys get a case in Vegas, you better find yourself another wing-woman, because I surely won't be there." She said with a smile, but he could tell she was upset, at least for the first part of her statement.

He also felt like an idiot to have assumed she was going to work with them. He knew how hard Emily had worked, in order to convince the Superiors to allow Angie to at least Intern for the BAU, but he also knew there had been zero results in the end.

"Hello guys, you are just in time. Come in." A female voice greeted them, opening the door after Luke had rang twice.

Angie was still not convinced about that 'Insomnia' place, but she was not worried at all. She knew she was able to protect herself, in case Luke would turn out to be a creepy psycho who was taking here there, to kill her and to extract all of her vital organs that can be sold on the black market.

"Have you ever done this before?" The friendly female asked once they were in a small lobby with a bunch of chairs and a table with some document-looking papers.

"I hope not. I like new things!" Angie smiled, without even asking what 'this' really was.

"You need to fill in the papers, you know, standard privacy policy stuff and you signing away your rights to sue us in case you hurt yourself inside our premises." The girl laughed and she seemed very outgoing and bubbly. Angie liked that.

"Hurt ourselves?" Angie perked up, but weirdly, she did so with a smile on her face.

"Awesome! I can't wait!" Angie added, her excitement levels going through the roof.

Luke sat still, just checking out her responses to everything. She sure looked different than when he had dragged her to the cinema, against her will. And she had absolutely no clue what was going on at that moment.

"Adventurous much?" He finally asked.

"Dude, you have no idea! Bungee jumping, swimming with the sharks, robbing a bank with toy guns – you name it, I'll do it! Just, maybe, don't tell Prentiss about it." She said, filling the papers with a fake name, fake address, fake phone number.

He rolled his eyes as soon as he saw what she was writing down.

"I'm afraid that's not exactly what we do here." The female informed Angie. "Now, if you're done with the papers, here's some information about your mission…"

"Woah, a secret government-operated, underground intelligence agency is sending us on a mission!? How cool is that!" Angie nearly flipped out. In her mind, that seemed like a plausible scenario.

"Actually, you're here to beat Insomnia – a powerful creature who has captured you inside her dungeon and tortured you for days, without giving you the chance to fall asleep at night. You have been experiencing some of the most traumatic things in life and you are quite literally living in a constant nightmare, one that has turned into your reality." The female said in a voice that was low and creepy, as if she was telling a story to a child.

"So, basically, we're back to our reality?" Angie frowned.

Neither of them had any idea how close to home that story hit, for her.

"Your mission is to work together and to figure out a way to outsmart your capturer – the evil Insomnia. Only then would you be able to escape and to find peace, to be able to fall asleep again." The girl ended her introduction speech.

"Escape? Ooh, I get it now! That's actually kind of awesome!" She finally sounded enthusiastic about it, once again.

"You have sixty minutes inside, you may use three hints by calling out Insomnia's name…and giving me a few seconds to type out a message for you, which you will then see on the screen inside the room. You can use any object inside, apart from the big green box in one of the corners of the room - that's a box that contains lots of cables and a computer screen that connects the numerous automatic mechanisms inside the room. So, good luck, have fun and let's see if you can outsmart Insomnia!" The girl then told them the basic rules and she opened a door for them to walk through.

"I get it now. You needed to fill in the time between arriving here and the time of our game play, so the only thing you could do was to drag me to the cinema for like, half the movie. You knew I wouldn't last longer than that anyway! Well played, Alvarez…well played!" Angie was impressed with him and he was, quite frankly, impressed at how quickly she figured it all out.

Luke had planned this right away, when he saw Angie on Emily's couch. He wanted to help her have a good time and he had instantly checked for a free slot for that escape room that he had been eyeing for a while now. They only had the midnight slot available, so he had booked that on his phone and he had opted for driving there right away, but that left him with about 45 minutes of free time to spare and since he knew Angie was smart and she'd figure out something was going on if he just parked and had her wait in the car, plus that would look very creepy, he opted for fooling her that his initial plan had been taking her to the cinema.

"I told you I wanted a re-match." He replied to her silently, referring to what he'd said after the first time they'd been to an escape room together, in New York.

Right after he spoke, they were locked inside what seemed to be a long hallway, with no lights.

"Want to hold hands?" He said sweetly, not wanting her to trip and fall on their way further in, as he felt like the ground underneath them was uneven.

There were rocks and broken pieces of furniture on the floor, as they made their first few steps.

"Oh, it's okay. Here…" Angie extended her hand, searching for his, in the dark.

"Don't be scared. I'm right here." She added silently, as if she was talking to a dumb child.

"Goddamn it, that's not how I meant-…" He groaned and felt no need to continue his sentence.

She had shot his attempt at being nice. What girl would not be freaked out, locked with a guy she barely knew, in a pitch-black room, with obstacles on the floor? At the very least, she could trip and faceplant.

"Wait, there's something here…" He said, as he had been trailing one hand along the wall next to him, on his way forward.

"Like a stick…maybe we can use that somehow…" He said, feeling the object with his fingers.

"I might have an idea or two…" Angie laughed silently.

Leave it to her to make just about anything sound sexual.

"Wait, let me feel it?" She asked and it was then his turn to tease her.

"Mmh, a little lower…" He said when her hand splashed against the wall, at a level just above his hips.

"You do know they have nighttime vision cameras here, right? Plus, microphones. Stop being a perv and let me hold it." She tried to sound innocent, but it was most definitely yet another innuendo.

"Oh, that's like some sort of a lever. Or a switch." She deducted.

"Wait, don't!" Luke was a bit too late.

She pulled the stick upwards and they heard an evil laughter fill the space, followed by flashes of light, just enough to show them where they had to go next.

A few steps further down this hallway, there was a door that only got opened when they solved their first big part of the game.

There had been symbols on the walls and their task had been to feel them with their hands, on the way in, and to figure out the right order in which they'd have to push the buttons on the door, with the same bunch of symbols on them.

"Okay, maybe it's from left to right. First, the left wall symbols, then the right." Luke suggested.

"No, that wouldn't make sense. Why not the right side first? That's not it. There must be something else…" Angie thought for a second. "What if it's not about the walls, but about which symbol was found first? Like, in order of the symbols?"

Luke was confused until Angie made him go back to where they had started. Her hand brushed along the left wall and he followed the right wall.

"Communication, partner! We walk slowly and we tell each other when we feel something." She suggested, holding his hand, making sure they'd walk in equal pace, while their free hand would trail along the wall next to them.

"A circle with like…eyes or weird triangles inside of it…" Angie said, being the first one to find a symbol, on the left wall.

"A square with a cross inside." Luke spoke next.

At the end of the hallway they had the sequence of all six hidden symbols and they opened the door successfully.

As soon as they were in the second space, which was a much bigger room, they heard Insomnia's loud and obnoxious laughter again. It was supposed to be horror-themed, but Angie kept on laughing each time something popped up, or whenever a crazy sound was heard.

They wandered around for a minute, checking what possible enigmas and clues they may find.

"Shit, there's math!" Angie frowned, standing by some weird looking torture machine where she had to count and multiply a few things, in order to make it start.

"It's basic calculations." Luke was now laughing at her.

He wouldn't have pegged her for someone who was afraid of math, out of all things.

"Crap, we need Reid in here…" Luke muttered a minute later, failing at the calculations.

"I don't think it's this easy. I mean, yeah the calculations are, but I'm not sure if we should use all variables…" She pointed at the board where a few numbers were scrambled around in pencil.

"Didn't we see dots on that wall out there?" Luke questioned, remembering something he had found odd a few minutes ago.

"Yeah, yeah! They were sparse…" Angie looked behind her and then back to the board.

"Look, we're only meant to calculate the numbers that correspond to the positions of those dots on the wall. They form something like…a weird constellation of some sort." She pointed out and Luke called out the numbers he found, by that logic.

"Alright, so the final number should be 268." He said after summing it all up in his head.

Angie inserted that as a code, in a nearby gadget and instantly they heard what sounded like a thousand bats, flying all around.

"Bats? Disgusting." Luke murmured. He was not fan of nocturnal animals, let alone bats.

"Fun fact – bats can 'see' in the dark using a special skill called echolocation. They produce a series of noises and then wait for the sound waves to bounce back off objects, obviously creating an echo. If it doesn't bounce back, then they can safely fly forward. They can tell the distance of various objects by how quickly the sound waves bounce back to them." Angie stated calmly, checking if some mechanism might have been opened automatically. It was hardly worth the hassle of all the math, if the reward was just a scary flock of bats, presumably flying over them. There must be something else there for them to figure out now.

"Okay, Reid 2.0." Luke rolled his eyes. This girl sounded exactly like him when she'd just burst out in some random fact downpour.

"My point is - the sound of my voice bounced back with delay. Something must have gotten triggered around us, like a door to another place opened, so the sound took a while to echo back to us, because it had to literally fill in one more room first." She spoke and walked carefully in the dark.

The lights had switched off when she had inserted the three number code, so they were once again met with complete darkness.

"I just hope they don't eat us alive." Luke commented, still unable to shake his disgust by the thought of bats.

"Don't worry, most bats feed on insects. Some eat fruit or fish. Although, they do enjoy some fresh blood, on occasion." She said creepily, tickling Luke in the dark.

"Stop. Eww. Gross." He shrieked away.

"Did you hear that? Get yourself a man who doesn't want you to touch him in the dark!" Angie said, facing one of the surveillance cameras in the room and speaking directly to the girl who was following their game, watching them on a bunch of screens outside the room.

Luke cursed silently, unsure whether he was enjoying Angie's company or whether he was utterly terrified by the things she said.

"Here! There's a gap in the wall and then there's another room on the other side." She called out after she made the discovery.

Without even a hint of worry, she jumped into the next room. Yes, those were man-made spaces, with fake noises and decor meant to scare the players, but still, being there was meant to pump their adrenaline and to make them feel the tiniest bit of fear.

The game continued and for the second part of it, Luke contributed most of the insight. He stepped up his game and it turned out he was actually quite good at it.

"Ya tu sabes!" Angie replied to him automatically, after some comment he had made.

"Hablemos en español?" He asked her to speak in Spanish, if she wanted.

She only shook her head. She didn't like speaking in Spanish, if it wasn't absolutely necessary, like it had been in Cuba, with the IRS.

"Or English." He said lamely. "English is also fine…"

They continued searching for clues and went through two more tiny rooms before the final door opened.

"Congratulations! You have successfully outsmarted Insomnia and you are now free from her spell. You can sleep calmly tonight." The girl from the escape room told them, clapping her hands as they managed to get out with five minutes to spare.

"I doubt that…" Angie muttered to herself. She'd probably be unable to close her eyes all night long.

"With him, no doubt." The girl nudged Angie, assuming they were a couple and that Angie's words were meant in a very different way.

"Oh, Hell no! He's…we work together. Barely." Angie waved her hands in the air and Luke saw the way she blushed, denying the other girl's suspicion, but he chose not to say anything.

"Hey, we're getting better at this." He commented once the girl left them alone for a minute, to go reset some mechanism inside the room and to prepare it for the next group of players.

"I was already damn good at this. It's you who needs all the practice you could get." Angie teased back.

"I wouldn't mind making this a weekly occurrence. I mean, after all, you're a great teacher." Luke smiled.

If he had to think about the last time he had some fun, doing something silly like this, he had to think very hard. Lately all he ever did was eat, sleep, work, repeat. He was worried he was turning into a male version of Emily Prentiss and that was disturbing.

"I suppose that may be arranged. Don't know whether it is too smart for me to hang out at night, during school nights, though." Angie smiled.

Yes, she'd really enjoy going to other escape rooms, but late nights were not a smart move if she wanted to graduate. Once in a while it was okay, but she knew she had to be careful with just how much fun she let herself have, before it would hurt her studying and training.

"Sorry guys, here I am again. Now, do you want to take a picture for our wall of Winners?" The girl re-appeared, holding a photo camera and pointing at a wall, full of photos of all the groups that have managed to escape from the room.

Luke said Yes immediately, but Angie was adamant.

"Actually, I don't like having my photo taken." Angie said with a small shrug.

She had that thing where she would refuse to ever appear on photos. She liked the idea of posing for a photo and she had been told to be photogenic, but she hated the thought of someone else having that photo in their hands, afterwards. She cringed so badly whenever she saw people upload anything to their social media accounts. It was something she would never do.

"That's okay. I can take it with your phone, if you want. This way you'll have it, as a memory, and it won't be displayed anywhere unless you share it with someone." The girl said nicely and Angie handed her the phone.

What could possibly go wrong? It was just a photo and nobody would ever see it, since it was on her personal phone. Why not snap it? Why not act like a normal 23 year old, for once in her life?

The girl took the photo of them right in front of a huge plastic figure of Insomnia herself, dressed in black, with blood coming out of her mouth and a machete above their heads.

Angie and Luke had to duck a little, pretending to be avoiding Insomnia's fatal hit. The girl instructed them to act like they were scared, so in the spur of the moment, Angie held on to Luke and he placed one hand over her shoulder, bringing her closer.

Through the process of taking that photo, there was also background music, with the sounds of people screaming. Angie found it hard to be serious in the photo, as all she wanted to do was laugh.

But in the end, the final photo was great. Both of them looked absolutely terrified and were holding onto each other for dear life. It cracked them up and Angie was glad she had allowed herself to be photographed, this one time.

They thanked the girl for the whole experience and while Luke was paying for the game, the girl told them how well they had played, as partners, and how intuitive they both had been with the different enigmas.

Luke watched as Angie walked out of the building with a huge smile on her face. This was his goal all along, he just wanted her to smile and enjoy the evening in company, not curled up on someone's couch, all alone.

"You know what would make tonight even better?" He asked as they walked towards his car.

"Well, considering the fact that you're a middle-aged Latino male, I'd say it's either pizza or sex. But you only get one tonight, so choose wisely." She just came out and said it. Why not? She was clearly only joking and her jokes were usually a bit weird, everyone knew that.

"Oh, I'll always choose food." He smirked, giving her the answer she wanted to hear and keeping the real answer to himself.

"No offence…" He added and truly, none taken.

He was Latino, after all. His mind was in the gutter most of the time. That was why he had this beautiful and weird friendship with Emily – both of them had a very sick and twisted way of saying inappropriate things and laughing about them when everyone else considered them freaks.

"Hey, aren't you hungry after you ate your gun?" He asked, remembering how she had waved the banana peel at him earlier that evening.

"I am starving, but good luck finding anything open at half past one o'clock at night." She sighed, sitting in the passenger's seat and putting the safety belt on.

"Girl, please. I'm a Latino guy. I have to have food whenever I want it, day or night! And I live nearby. I've done my research when it comes to restaurants." He drove off and she didn't even ask where they were going.

"You are really comfortable in a car, with a stranger, at night." He spoke after a few minutes of silence.

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be? I can protect myself and if anything happens to me, my phone's GPS will put me with you at the time of my murder and then the worst of the worst would be happening to you." She smiled innocently.

"Would that be jail?" He wondered.

"Oh, don't be silly! Jail would be a dream come true." She laughed. "I meant that Emily Prentiss would come after you and torture you until you take your last breath. And possibly even after that. She's kind of kinky, she might keep the torture going post-mortem, too."

Luke held his breath for a long moment, realizing that this was a very plausible scenario.

"What you're trying to pry out of me is that I'm not scared of people. Yes. I don't find them intimidating, because I'm fairly certain I can control a situation, even unarmed. I'm smart and I can read people's behavior and react to it in ways that would either buy me time until someone saves my ass, or just until I wear them out and they would eventually stop messing with me. How did you think I handled all the bullies at my schools?" Angie added.

It was fun to avoid questions and Luke was also fun to mess around with and joke with all the time, but she didn't want to risk becoming annoying if she defused every single thing.

"You must have moved around a lot, growing up." Luke pointed out, having studied her behavior and figuring out that she was used to adapting to people and situations very quickly.

"I did and, for the most part, it was actually fun. I have no regrets. Well, none that I could go back in time and change anything about anyway." She said, throwing the blanket over her feet. She felt a little cold.

"And here we are! Take-away heaven for those late-night hungry guys, like me." Luke pulled up in front of some restaurant-looking place. It was now closed for dining, but there was a sign outside, informing them that the kitchen was open until 3 am and it was take-away only, after midnight.

"Awesome!" Angie's eyes grew wide.

Escape room and warm food was not how she had imagined her night to go.

They went to the drive-in counter at the corner of the building and placed an order that could feed four people. Luke was a big guy, he could eat a lot, but he'd soon be surprised that tiny Angela was not a picky eater and she wouldn't leave anything on her plate.

"Okay, don't make another inappropriate joke about this, but we can either eat this in the car, in which case I'll hate you for a month until the smell of food leaves my beautiful car, or we can go back to my place which is close by, and eat like civilized people, on a table." He gave her the options.

"I'd normally never go back to a guy's place, but, like I said, GPS would put me right in your house, so I'm sure you won't try anything stupid with me. I shall be fine. Let's go."

Her words made him wonder if something might have happened to her, in the past? The fact that she was not afraid to spend hours with him, after dark, did not mean that she was dumb. In fact, with what she said, he could tell she was smart and she was weighting her options, choosing the safest thing for herself, backed up by facts and proof that it would not be dangerous. She was surely much smarter than she led believe, with her carefree attitude and the numerous jokes she always cracked.

He drove to a building and Angie was relieved to see it was not a house. She hated houses. She'd much rather be in an apartment, on the upper floors, only.

"Hey, out of curiosity, how much do you pay for this place?" She asked, walking in.

It was a small apartment, like something a student would rent for himself, to have some privacy. Luke had moved there after moving out of the place he had leased, in hopes of making it his home, with his ex-girlfriend Lisa.

"For this!?" Angie's jaw dropped when she heard the price.

"Don't get me wrong, it's a nice and clean apartment, but it's way too small for all the money you're paying. Damn!" She added, thinking she'll never be able to afford moving out of the Academy, which was free. And, soon enough, that experience would be over and she would need to find a place to stay. That thought terrified her.

"It's technically meant for a couple. There's one bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom and this…if you can call this a living room…" He pointed at a corner, an extension to the kitchen area, where a couch and a small table were laid out in front of a TV.

"Eww! Who would want to be stuck in a tiny apartment, with someone else?" She rolled her eyes.

Her words also showed him she wasn't way too experienced with relationships. Someone her age would be obsessed with the thought of living with someone else, if they had fallen head over heels for them. And yet, she acted as if it would be torture.

Luke placed the boxes of food on the kitchen table and grabbed some forks and knives. He grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge, but Angie let him know she didn't like beer, so he offered her either white wine or water. She went with water. The stupidest thing she could do would be to go to PFT in the morning, with a headache. She loved white wine and she refused to allow herself to get carried away, if not because of the training on the next day, then purely because of the fact that she was at some guy's apartment, without knowing much about him. She did not fear people, but she also did not trust people.

Luke started some small talk about food, which turned into a discussion about music, somehow. Angie told him about the hip-hop music she liked to listen to and he was impressed that she knew so many of the old school singers. Being a New York born and raised, Luke knew hip-hop and he also knew reggaeton, being a Latino.

Half an hour later, all food boxes were empty, but the conversation was still going. Angie found herself laughing at something silly he had said and he found it incredibly easy to talk to her. Most girls would fuss about the first thing they disliked and they'd act fake or desperate, but not her. He had mentioned he liked cars and driving and she had not taken it upon herself to be weird and tell him that she actually despised cars. She brushed it off and went on to the next topic. And she wasn't one of those girls who would play with their hair and lick their lips, just because a guy was sitting in front of them. She acted normal, relaxed and very chill.

"What's it like?" She asked, out of the blue.

Luke had just spoken about pizza toppings, so he was not sure what she meant with that question.

"The first time you talk someone out of committing murder. What's that like?" She elaborated.

"Uh, it's…it feels really good. But it puts enormous pressure on your shoulders. Like, okay, you did well this time, but from this point on you're supposed to only ever do just as good. No failing, no bad results ever allowed. You know?" He said honestly.

He could sugarcoat it and make himself sound like a superhero, but he wasn't that type of guy. He liked the truth.

"And what was it like, the first time you had to kill someone?" She asked one more question, out of curiosity.

"Ah, that was…woah. I'll never forget that day. We've been hunting this guy for a while and he managed to put a bullet in my partner, at the time, before I took him down. I was so pissed off. I watched my partner bleed out, curled in the corner, behind a barrel, and there was nothing I could do for him. I couldn't call for back-up, I couldn't run to the other side of the room and help him. I just…watched. Then I heard the gunshots once again and I just flipped. Once I had a clear shot, I took the son of a bitch down without hesitation." Luke spoke slowly, narrowing his eyes, as if he was mentally going through that painful memory as he spoke.

"So, you were okay after that? Like, you didn't feel guilty or have nightmares?" She asked again.

"Are you joking? I was far from fine. It took me months of therapy to somewhat get over it. I was off the field for what seemed like an eternity. And I still have nightmares about that day, even this many years later. I think something as stressful as your first kill stays with you forever. No matter what you do, it will always haunt you." He pushed his beer bottle aside, deciding it was a better choice to switch to water before he'd risk a DUI. He did have the obligation to drive Angela back to the Academy, after all.

"If I could give you any advice – prepare yourself mentally, for that moment. And know that, whatever happens to you next, you'll always have people around you, people who would understand what you're going through. Don't be afraid to ask for help. It wouldn't make you weak. Just don't let yourself suffer silently. Trust me, it's the worst thing you could do." Luke continued, this time offering her a small smile as he gathered everything from the table, placing the cutlery in the sink, to be washed, and the paper boxes in the trash, to be taken out in the morning.

Angie sighed. She wished that preparing for that moment would be an option for her. But everything else Luke had said spoke to her in ways that no shrink ever could.

"Thanks for not sugarcoating it. I'm sick of people treating me like a baby, just because I'm young and I have great skin which makes me look even younger." She chuckled, turning this into a small joke.

"I don't think that's all." He looked at her curiously. "I think there is so much more about you… I just don't know why you're hiding it."

"Because people are less inclined on doubting the words of a girl who looks like she couldn't tell her left shoe from her right one. And I do like getting my way. It's just easier when you play dumb."

"No. That's not it." Luke called her out, making that smile on her face freeze. "There's some other reason why you act the way you do. Hey, I'm not judging, don't get me wrong. I'm just curious. I am a profiler, after all."

"I really want to be a profiler, too." She sighed.

"We know." He whispered and she appreciated that he said 'we', intending the entire BAU.

"How is it already quarter past three?" Luke went pale after he caught a glimpse of the wall clock above the couch.

"They say time flies, when in good company." Angie smirked, clearly meaning she was the good company, not the other way around.

"Come on, I should get you back to Quantico. Don't you have PFT at, like, eight in the morning?" He asked.

"Half past seven, actually. And I'm beginning to regret the decision to stay out so late. I mean, you have to drive half an hour to Quantico and then half an hour back home and you'd have less than an hour to sleep before you need to go to work in the morning. I think I may have just realized why people say I'm bad influence." She chuckled, but in all seriousness she did feel pretty badly that she had screwed up a good night sleep for Luke.

"I don't regret a thing. We hung out, we got kicked out of a cinema, got showered with free stuff, escaped from Insomnia and then we ate. As far as I'm concerned, tonight could not have gone any better!" He said cheerfully, but making a small calculation in his head he realized Angie was right – he'd only have less than an hour sleep before he'd have to go to work.

"Look, you can sleep over and we'll drive up to Quantico only once this way, in the morning. This gives both of us more time to sleep. You can take the bed, I'll sleep on the couch." He offered.

Angie was not new to sleeping over at other people's houses. She didn't care, not even if she had to sleep on his bed, with him next to her, as long as he kept his hands to himself. She was fine with sharing, the bed, that is.

However, she insisted on taking the sofa. It was soft and fluffy and there were three big pillows she could cuddle up to. Luke was adamant, at first, but seeing how excited she really was about the couch, he let her crash there.

Both of them fell asleep as soon as they laid down, after taking their late night relaxing showers.

In the morning, Angie walked over to his bed and shook his shoulder lightly. It didn't work, so she remembered how he had told her, during the New York case, that he loved music at any time of the day. She then played some reggaeton on her phone and he slowly opened his eyes, lazily rubbing them with both hands.

"Come on, I can't be late for PFT. Dan would crush my skull with a hammer if I screwed up one more time." She whispered.

"Huh?" Luke said, all confused and still half-asleep.

"Doesn't matter. Just get up, please." She laughed and tugged on his covers, but quickly stopped doing so, just in case he wasn't sleeping fully clothed.

He got up, skipping his usual morning shower so he could save those ten extra minutes, in case he'd find traffic on his way to Quantico.

After arriving to the Campus, Angie darted out the car, mumbling a 'Thank you' to Luke before she sprinted to the dorms to change into her activewear and she rolled up to the training field with a minute to spare.

Luke drove to the nearest McDonalds, ordering himself a double espresso and just about all the donuts he could find on the display. He needed to wake up and he had an hour and a half to waste before he'd actually have to be at the BAU.

Sipping his coffee, he smiled to himself. After spending some time with Angela, he could see why Emily was so fond of her. It wasn't just Emily, in fact. Reid had been raving about Angie ever since they went to the Seminar together and Rossi had always spoken highly of her, as well.

It saddened Luke to know that, as motivated and prepared this girl was, there was nothing the BAU could do in order to get her that internship.

Or…was there?


REVIEW REPLIES:

"rmpcmfan" Back? I've been here, quietly observing :D Hehehe! Now, interesting observation that Emily might know such details about Angela, considering how extremely secretive the girl is about her past. Hmm...sounds like it, doesn't it? Oh trust me - in the weirdest of ways, it will all fit together in the end :)! About Angie's nightmare - one of the senses has triggered it, but it was not the olfactory one. One of her nicer dream sequences was triggered by the olfactory sense, but that's just a tiny little detail that it's really nice you caught, but it isn't anything crucial to the story. Angie is HUGE on senses, btw. Also, a young lady (in Angie's past) certainly does play a huge role in her backstory. And what do you mean "we USED to pull a banana as a gun"? I just did so, to my boss the other day :D Still funny as heck! Angie was so out of any sort of reality when she broke in the BAU lol, talking to herself and acting weird. Guess it's her own way of destressing after the day she'd had with Ben and the Director.

"sweetkid45" Soon, soon :)! Let her have her fun, to recharge and relax after all the tense cases and she'll be ready to be a Boss Lady when she comes back, hehe!