Psychosis

Chapter 50- A Horrible Sense Of Familiarity

When the four of them stepped out of the vehicle, Ciara could already smell the cows. Growing up, the cows were one of the favorite parts of her home. To be honest, she had liked the cows on her property more than she liked most people, and they were very familiar with her and her scent. So much so that they usually didn't even mind it when the small fleshy alien walked up and started petting their calves. Not to mention the fact that Ciara, most of the time, had volunteered to feed and watch after the orphaned and/or rejected calves, and the ones her family kept remembered that.

So when the four agents had split up to search the property, she had secretly hoped she'd come across the cows, but she wasn't going to waste time by purposefully seeking them out. Luckily for her, Hotch assigned each of them a direction to search, and when he gave Ciara her direction, she could see a barn in the distance. Perfect. As she searched, she eventually came across the corral, and she stopped her search for just a second to look at the cows, and she smiled softly.

She knew that these cows probably wouldn't let her get close to them. She was unfamiliar to them. But yet, she still wanted to go into the corral and try. If someone found her, she could say she was searching for clues in the dirt. She looked down at her shoes and decided that she'd better not. After all, she didn't want to get the nice white soles of her Converse dirty. By the time she got to the hotel to clean them, they'd already be stained, and she didn't want that.

So instead, she turned her gaze away from the corral and started to walk towards the barn. She wondered if there would be any clues about the case or the picture in there. When she got inside, she started searching for a light switch, and after a minute of fumbling around, she finally found and flipped it. She looked around, and pushed against the wall, she found four pairs of mud boots, each one most likely belonging to one member of the Whittle family.

She looked at the smallest pair and put her foot up against it, seeing that they were about half a size bigger than her shoes. She thought for a second, before shaking her head. She might get in trouble for doing this, but she was sure that if she told Hotch it was in the name of looking for evidence, he'd forgive her. She slipped her foot, shoe and all, inside the mud boot, and it fit just right. She slipped the other one on and looked around the room she was in. Seeing nothing that could help her, she traveled into the next room.

And as soon as she stepped into the room, her face broke into a wide smile, and if it wasn't for the fact that she hated the sound, she would have squealed with excitement. In this room laid eight calves, each in their own pens. And although the pens were quite sizable, they looked like they needed some new straw. But Ciara wasn't there to judge, she was there to look for evidence. But how could she look for evidence when all those calves were looking at her like they wanted her to come over and say hi?

"Well, as far as I can see, there's no evidence here, so I suppose..." Ciara said, and practically ran over to the first pen, where the calf inside got up and walked straight over to her. Ciara looked down at the gate, knowing she couldn't go inside the pen, but sure wanting to. On the gate, there was a label, saying the calf was a female named Spot, along with her birthdate and the fact that she was still feeding on a bottle. She stuck out her hand and Spot almost immediately started to suck on her fingers. If Reid saw what she was doing, he'd probably have a heart attack. She looked down at Spot, who seemed almost sad that her fingers weren't actually food.

Wait a second...

"Have any of ye guys been fed since this whole thing happened?" Ciara asked them, and Spot let go of her fingers and made a single bawling sound. "Oh, ye poor babies! Ye must be so hungry!" Immediately, Ciara went and looked at all the other labels, and saw that the first three calves were all on a bottle, and the other five had graduated to a bucket. Good for them. She went back into the first room, remembering from her childhood how to make the replacement milk.