𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐄 ━━ 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘴

⠀⠀𝟬𝟳. ❛ BLOOD RUNS THICKER THAN WATER ❜

     Alex Blake raised her eyebrows. "How will they know it's you?" she questioned, crossing her arms.

     "They'll know because the I.P. address is not Garcia's and I'm the only one who knows what the sentences mean," I explained, tossing the marker into the air and catching it swiftly.

     "What do they mean? Other than what they spell out," Spencer asked, genuine curiosity painted across his face.

     Biting back a smirk, I stepped forward. "My father's name is Ross Valentine. If I'm correct in my thinking, it is possible he is in on what is happening right now. Hence, why the first sentence spells out ROSS KNOWS. In the sentence that spells out the web address, my father is mentioned and it says that he is away, nearly ticking time—meaning—he has a limited amount of time in prison, or life, left. However, the first two sentences are contradicting one another. One implies he is aware of the true endgame while the other implies that he will soon be meeting his bittersweet end. Therefore, one of them could be meant literally or be a distraction." I explained, keeping my tone even and calm.

     "But we won't know until we go to that website," Rossi concluded, and I nodded, joining where he was standing behind Morgan, who held the laptop.

     Glancing from Rossi and I to the Unit Chief, Morgan blinked. "Hotch, do you want us to go to the website?" he asked. Hotch nodded. Shaking his head softly in silent disagreement, Morgan typed the URL in and everyone waited a total of seven seconds before the website loaded. A black screen popped up and the words Checkmate, Sin were typed across it.

     For a moment, it felt as if someone had sucker-punched me in the stomach and I could barely breathe as my eyes washed over the message multiple times. "He knows." I cleared my throat, turning away from the screen to look back at the whiteboard. The last time I'd seen my father was months ago. The visits had stopped the moment the FBI went to question the Founding Fathers. What happened in those couple of months that got him to go back? He'd promised me years ago, after the trial, that he wasn't part of the Scorpions anymore. That part of his life was over and all he wanted was to be a father. My father. And that promise had been proven true until now. He broke his promise.

     "How do you know?" Agent Jareau asked, looking away from the screen.

     Blinking, I separated myself from the cluster everyone had formed around the laptop and made my way back to the whiteboard. "The word checkmate is most commonly used for chess. It's a game position in which a player's king is in check and there is no way to remove the threat. Checkmating the opponent wins the game. The Red Scorpions won." I said, clearing my throat.

     Morgan furrowed his brows in confusion. "How did they win?" he asked.

     "They got my father back to being involved with them. They made it to Arizona successfully and the mission is still being carried out. They knew I would slip up somehow..." I spoke, mumbling the last portion to myself.

     Taking one last look at the two words, Alex turned her head. "What does Sin mean?" she asked, and I bit the inside of my cheek.

     "Sin is an allegorical character— created by John Milton— who meets her father, Satan, at the gates of Hell in Book Two of Paradise Lost. Sin holds the key to Hell's gate and opens it so that her father can pass through while on his way up to Heaven. She doesn't have a mother and was born out of Satan himself during his rebellious assembly in Heaven. Which signifies both an allegorical representation of his sin against God and a parody of God's creation of his Son. Sin is referred to as a 'woman to the waist' by many. She has a fish's tail, but she shifts shape—constantly re-forming and breeding, and giving birth to dog-like children. She has no control over these changes and is held captive by pregnancies in a body that is always in perpetual labor. Satan raped his daughter in Heaven and she gives birth to Death, later on in the poem.