MOCKINGBIRD | Spencer Reid ✔️

⠀⠀⠀ thirty seven

He rose a brow towards the two women arguing beforehand and Scout sent him a sheepish smile. She quickly grabbed the vest back from JJ, biting down on her bottom lip as she shrugged off the blazer.

The superintendent narrowed his eyes as he read the words on her shirt.

"Trying to blend in?"

Scout's mouth dropped as she glanced at Spencer who was across the room. He shook his head bashfully, knowing that their little secret was revealed by the unknowing man.

"Well, I'm certainly short enough, sir."

Scout followed after Morgan as he watched the students walking into the building. She was assigned to a classroom on the second floor of the building but wanted to get a quick look around to see if anything had changed since the last time she was there.

"Are you mad at me?" She inquired, dodging a young boy with a stack of books in his hands.

"Now, why would I be mad at you, kid?"

Scout shrugged, "Because I really don't think there's a need for us to be here. That I think this is just some kid trying to pull a prank and it got out of hand."

"Look, I know you might think that but look at the facts," Morgan sighed and stopped to face her. "Last year there was 434 mass shootings in the United States alone. This averaged 1.19 mass shootings per day. In those shootings, 1,643 people were injured and 517 died, for a total of 2,160 victims."

"You sound like Reid, spitting out perfectly memorized facts."

"I have to. Those were innocent people: kids, teachers, administrators. If there's even a chance that we could save one person then I'm willing to take that risk. Aren't you?"

Scout bit down at her lip and nodded. She couldn't say it a loud but the only thing rushing through her brain was the number of people she had killed with her rifle.

It wasn't like she had a choice but subconsciously, it never register as her actually killing them. To ease whatever moral conscious she had left, she would blame the gun. If Scout wasn't handed that rifle then she wouldn't have fired the trigger.

But deep down, she knew that wasn't the case.

Even if she didn't have a gun, she could still kill each and every one of her targets. She was a trained assassin; skilled in blades, hand to hand combat, and survival instincts. If Xander told her to kill any random person, she could do it without hesitation.

Scout glanced around at the crowd of students. Hell, she could kill any of them right now and ideally not feel any guilt. They were all just blank faces, hollow bodies. She was trained to look at them like that and she wasn't sure if that could be rewired.

"Scout? Hey kid, you awake?" Morgan snapped his fingers.

"Hm? What's up?"

"You alright? It seemed like a just lost you for a second. Everything okay?"

She nodded and tucked a stand of falling hair away from her face, "Yeah, sorry. Just - being back here brings back some memories for me."

"High school tends to do that for some people. Didn't have the best experience?" Rossi said as he walked up to the pair, seemingly slipping himself into the conversation.

Scout chuckled.

"I guess you could say that, it just wasn't what people would call - ideal, I suppose."

Morgan glanced around, "I had a friend of mine in school who got shoved into the lockers everyday his freshman year."

"A friend of yours called You?" Scout raised a brow.