Innocent: Spencer Reid ✔️

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"Your family wouldn't feed you to the dogs. Or in this case, I'm sure your family would think the dogs are us." Hotch replies, staring down at Averlyn. She looks small in the chair and handcuffs she's in, smaller than she would like to appear. She doesn't try to toughen up, she just sits there, slumped in her seat, back to silence. "Where are they?"

"Look, Averlyn you have the chance to help us and other people. Daughters, wives, sisters, friends. Don't you want to help? What if one of those girls was your daughter? Or your best friend, your mother. You'd help them." Her fingers curl into a fist as she goes from tapping to punching her leg, causing her leg to jolt and hit the table. It stuns all of us, even Averlyn as she retracts her hands from her thigh and clasps them together atop of the table again. It can't be Tourette's, she would have said something that she shouldn't have by now. Maybe ADHD, maybe she can't keep her hands still for that reason. Either way, she won't budge.

Her knuckles turn white as she slowly cuts off circulation. JJ realises this and gently reaches for her hands. "What did they do to you, Averlyn?" Derek joins me and Blake in the small room we're in, listening over the interrogation.

"She said anything?" He asks, unaffected by anything.

"Only 'they are my family' so she's protecting them." Alex mutters, taking a sip from her coffee. It's too late at night to interrogate someone as stubborn as Averlyn.

"What if she's scared." I say before thinking, earning confused glances from Blake and Morgan. "Do you remember Wayne Gulino, brainwashing and training teenagers to deliver a message." Both Derek and Alex take a few seconds to remember a past case before nodding eagerly at me. "What if she's here to send a message?" Derek takes out his phone and taps a message to Hotch, showing me his phone before sending the message. Ask her if they abused her. "No. No it's not right. Something doesn't add up." I mutter.

"Do they abuse you?" Hotch asks and her rhythmic tapping starts again. She's quick to hide her hands but we know the answer. "Is that a yes?"

"No. It's a no comment. My hands do this all the time, your presence or questions makes no difference." Her voice is cold but angelic, the perfect ruse. JJ opens a file and slides it over to Brooks, showing her the crime scene photos and the victims.

"Lyla Harrison, Morgan Freelal, Jeniffer Adley and Khloe Brown. Your four most recent victims. We've linked several other murders to you, all that went unsolved. How many more are there?" The dark haired girl looks down at the photos of the victims displayed in front of her and while JJ and Hotch give a discreet glance at the mirror, I watch her face. Her eyebrows furrow again ever so slightly you could almost miss it and her nostrils flare. It's taking her everything in her might to not look away and prolong the interrogation. When her brows creased she didn't look disgusted, there was something else that I haven't seen before. Sympathy.

"She's not here to send a message." I say, grabbing my phone out of my pocket as I think of a message. What am I meant to say?

"How do you know?" Blake asks, leaning forward to take a look at me.

"When she saw the photos of the victims, she already knew their names. They're pre-selected. Not my point. When Hotch and JJ looked away her eyebrows creased the slightest bit. The same way they did when she first spoke. She's scared." Her facial movements are the way we tell if she's lying. I spin my phone around in my hand a few times before turning it the right way up to text JJ. What did they do to her? She's not protecting them she's protecting herself, she's afraid.

JJ reads my message and frowns, hesitant to look back up. "Averlyn, these people can't hurt you in here. Whatever they did to you, you can tell us. We can find them if you cooperate." She glances at the corner again where the camera is and quickly flickers her eyes back to JJ. Hotch looks behind him at the camera and frowns. He then gets up from his chair and leaves the interrogation room with a discreet nod at JJ. When he gets to us, his face is stone cold.

"She's paranoid. She won't talk because she thinks people are listening. Derek get Garcia to turn the cameras off for a few minutes so we can get her to talk. It's the only way." Morgan nods and dials Penelope's number, leaving the small room to give her orders. In just a few minutes, everything goes dark. "What the hell?" Hotch mutters, opening the door to see Derek standing there.

"Penelope said she won't believe us so she turned the electrical supply off somehow, so make it quick." Hotch taps twice on the window and JJ starts talking again.

"Averlyn we've turned the cameras off so you feel safer." Emergency lights light up the PD we're in and Averlyn takes a deep sigh. "Shall we start simple. How old are you?" The truth is, she doesn't look a day over 20, and that's what's horrifying. They could have brainwashed a child.

She doesn't answer straight away, she ducks her head until she gains confidence. "24, I turn 25 in three weeks." JJ's face softens as Averlyn speaks, her voice is nothing above a whisper.

"Averlyn what did they do to you? You can tell me. It can stay between you and my team. Nobody else needs to know but it can help us understand." JJ sympathises as the rest of us wait in the soft glow of the emergency lights for her next response.

Averlyn looks up at JJ with watering eyes and seethes, "you don't know what it's like. You wouldn't understand." Tears finally fall down her face and she rubs her hands together to calm down. She doesn't wipe the tears away, she lets them drip off her chin onto her lap.

"Help me understand, Averlyn." She shakes her head and looks at the mirror for the first time in the three hours she's been here. JJ gets out her phone and starts to text, Hotch's phone pinging in his pocket. He takes a couple of seconds to open and read the text before he ushers us away from the mirror.

"Give them some time." He says. I take one last glance into the confiding room before leaving with Blake and Derek following behind.

What none of us understand is why she's here.

*****
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