nina cried power [SPENCER REID]

thirty-two.

As, in her peripheral vision he arrives beside her, Spencer sighs deeply. His hand darts out toward her for just a moment, but he quickly catches himself and retracts it, rubbing his wrist gently with his other fingertips. Awkward as ever, he scrunches his nose. "I can take your statement. Are you ready?"

To confess is to lock the prison door behind her. How could she ever be ready for that?

But vengeance -- the sweet taste of it, she is ready for.

❖ ❖ ❖

With a soft click, he turns on the tape-recorder and sets it down on the wood between them. They sit at his kitchen table, facing each other, the rest of his apartment on Nina's right and a white wall to her left, the table pushed against it. She has a glass of water, he a notebook, and there's a plant with a white lily in a glass jar between them. Flowers are painted on the glass in purple and pink acrylics, like a child's creation.

There's a tag on string tied around the neck. Love, mom.

Huh.

Nina clicks pause on the recorder. "Did your mom buy that for you?" she asks, nodding at the jar.

It takes Spencer a moment to realise what she's inquiring about. "Yes," he replies after a moment, hesitant, but despite the fact he answered her question, he nonetheless turns the tag around so she can't read it.

"Liar."

"I didn't lie."

"She made it. She didn't buy it."

Spencer narrows his eyes at her. "You're procrastinating by playing on a technicality. Stop it." And you're avoiding my questions, she thought accusatorially, and she almost spits the words at him, but he moves too quickly. Just as sharply and suddenly as she had, he clicks play, resuming the recording. "Please state your name for the record."

She clears her tight throat and hesitates. Iron bars clash inside her head, the curtains sweep closed on the performance of her life, the gavel pounds on the judge's desk.

And she confesses.

"Nina Scott."

Spencer rattles off the legal jargon, like the date and time, the purpose of the recording, all as Nina swallows. She can already imagine the faces in court listening to this, the mortified souls who've heard of her crimes. Her word means nothing. Her word already means nothing, and she hasn't even spoken. In their eyes, it doesn't matter whether or not she's a beast in chains by then; she'll still have her claws.

"I'll let you speak now," Spencer says, his eyes raising to hers as, with two slender fingers, he slides the recorder over the table so it's closer to her and can pick up her voice. "The floor's yours."

There's a moment of silence.

Bubbling up inside, Nina almost laughs at the absurdity of his expectations. "How can I describe my entire life to you?"

Spencer levels his eyes on her, patient and steady. The most powerful stare in the world. "Just start at the beginning."

Unable to hold his waiting gaze, she dips her eyes and clears her throat. "The beginning," she repeats airily.

Spencer gestures for her to speak up. Not that she has anything to say.

But, somehow, words come out. "When I met Ed.. I mean, Edelstein -- he was the judge on my father's court case. Before he got into politics. I was put into the foster care system, but he took me in when I was -- uhh, fifteen, sixteen, maybe? Gave me a place to eat and sleep, and managed to put me through education. See, I'd missed out on a chunk of high school, because of... everything. So he really helped me out."

I'm making him sound too nice.

"He didn't adopt my sister, though. She was adopted before me. Younger, less damaged, I guess."

Stay on topic.

"Once he got into politics, Ed used that to his advantage. It started off as a favour. I was a bad kid, y'know -- hung out with bad people, did bad shit. I drank, took some stuff I can't pronounce the names of. A lot of normal kids do -- forget the ones who went through shit like me and Elodie. Well, rather than try to scold me, Ed thought he'd take advantage. He said he wanted a favour. If me and my friends -- or maybe just me, if I thought I could do it alone --  could scare this guy really badly, it'd really help him out. Make a competitor back off."

"How old were you?"

Nina closes her eyes, and doesn't open them for a long while. She stares at the black behind her eyelids as she speaks. "Eighteen, maybe a little older. Anyways, I did it. And things just went back to normal afterwards. Ed took me out to dinner as a thanks.

"But then, he just kept asking for more favours. More people. Two is a coincidence, three is a pattern, I've always heard that. Well, when he asked a third time, I started asking questions. That's when he started using Elodie as payment. If I did these things, he'd tell me where she was, show me pictures, tell me how she was doing -- but now, these things -- these favours -- had escalated to... to murder. Y'know? And it wasn't just me working for him."

She manages to open her eyes, but keeps them turned down to watch her fiddling hands. "So the whole, if you refuse I'll slice your achilles or break your shins, or maybe even go after one of your friends, maybe even Elodie -- he never gave me that speech. I already knew it was true."

"So you're saying you felt pressured to do these jobs for him?" Spencer asks softly.

"Sort of. It wasn't just fear, though. He had valuable information about my sister, but he was also offering money, and, I mean, the guy put a roof over my head. He was half a father. As much as he scared me, I loved him -- wanted to please him."

She decides not to mention the third factor: the fact she enjoyed the hits. But this tape isn't for her court case, it's for Ed's. She need not incriminate herself too much.

"I wrote down everything he told me about Elodie," she continues. Her diary. "Honestly, I don't know how he knew where she was or what she was up to. I don't know. Maybe they were lies. But, I mean, I was a fucking naive kid -- besides, to this day Ed has people everywhere, just like he did back then. Eyes watching out for him, feeding him back their whispers. So when he told me she was on holiday in Florida, or in Alaska, or back home in Wisconsin, I took it as truth. Anyways, it was better to believe his lies about her, than know nothing about her at all."

"When did things escalate to murder? When did intimidation become assassinations?"

"In a gradually heating bathtub, you'll boil to death before you even realise what's happening," Nina replies. "Honestly, I can't remember. But I probably didn't even blink when he asked it of me. It was the almost natural conclusion. I think I saw it coming."

"How often would he ask you to go out on a job?"

"A couple of times a year."

"Do you remember any of them?"

I'm like you, Spencer. I remember everything. "Some of them," she lies. "Do you need to have my adventure stories on record?"

"Like I said, the floor is yours. You tell me, Nina."

And Nina does so; finally, Nina Scott confesses everything.

authors note:
okay so a bit unsure about where to go with the next chapter? i wanna include some action from nina's first few hits, maybe a story of when it went wrong, her actually kicking some ass, etc etc but idk if y'all are interested

there wouldn't be a mention of spencer next chapter, just some action and nina kicking ass, hopefully. and some edelstein, because i miss imagining david tennant and pwb together, lol

if y'all are interested, let me know!! i miss writing action sequences, so :))

and as always, please let me know what you thought of this chapter!!