Flight Risk | Spencer Reid

VIII

"I missed you, too." She puts a bookmark in the book and sets it aside. "Not to worry though, I stayed busy. Yeeqin and I had our friends over, I got through two new books, and I even found my way to one of the famed BAU Girls' Nights."

"Oh did you now?" he asks. He's not sure if famous is the right word – infamous, perhaps. Girls' Nights are known for raucous laughter, magnificent hangovers, and all the secrets he doesn't want to know. "How was that?"

"It was actually really fun," she laughs. "I definitely was not prepared for the amount of alcohol that would be consumed. But Garcia and Kate and JJ are so much fun, and they were so welcoming! There were some fascinating facts exchanged, but I was sworn to secrecy."

"Even with me?" he asks. And it's true, most of the time he doesn't want to know what happens. But that Y/N was there. And he can't help but wonder if she heard anything about him. If she saidanything about him.

"Oh, especially with you," she says. She looks up at him with a sly smile on her face. "You make it too easy to spill my soul to you. Besides, I'm sure you could profile most of my secrets anyways."

Reid knows the feeling. He'd tell her anything at all if she asked him. If he thought it would make her stay a little while longer talking with him or make her laugh or earn him a smile that dances across her beautiful lips. The lips he reminds himself he isn't supposed to be staring at right now. He just can't help it. Pretty girls have always had a knack for making a flustered mess of him, but she has a special talent for devastating him. Y/N is more than just a pretty face – she makes him feel lighter, unburdened by all the knowledge that he finally seems to find a use for when she asks him questions or wants new book recommendations. She reassures him. She trusts him. Bit by bit he's come to know her mind and her heart and the places she calls home. And he can't help but want to make himself at home in the warm feeling that washes over him each time she says his name or glances his way.

"What if I tell you one first?" he asks.

"Perhaps a deal could be arranged. It depends on the secret."

A thousand response he can never voice aloud whiz through his mind. Feelings he doesn't want to even acknowledge to himself. After a moment of forcing them down, reminding himself that he can't say them, that she can never know because she'll never look at him the same way again if he tells her what he feels, he offers, "I'm absolutely terrified of the dark."

Nodding, she pretends to weigh the value of his words. "An interesting discovery," she says. "But I don't know if it's quite on the proper level of secrets. However, I'm willing to let you think on it and give it another try later." She winks and his heart skips a beat. "I've got to get ready for takeoff. See you soon, Doctor." As she walks away, she touches his shoulder for just a moment and he thinks his heart might stop entirely.

The flight to Raleigh is brief and easy. They immediately get to work on the profile of a sexually sadistic killer. He most certainly has a pattern. Young professional women, all abducted at or near their workplace. All in broad daylight. And all killed within four hours from the time of abduction. This unsub has no use for them alive. It's the act of taking their life that gets him off, of possessing every part of them. And he has a type. Staring at the bulletin board of pictures – workplace headshots, family photos, social media selfies – Reid swallows hard as he realizes every one of them looks vaguely familiar. Their hair is of slightly lengths and their facial features have some variation, but they all look as if they could be sisters, cousins at the very least. And if you put Y/N's photo up, she would fit right in.

The realizing makes him want to pull his phone out on the spot and call her to make sure she got to the hotel safely after leaving the airport. Why don't they travel together? Why are the pilots always separate? He needs to know they're safe. He needs to know that she's safe. His fingers find their way into his pocket. They wrap around the hard metal of his phone. The faces on the board stare back at him. It's not his job to keep her safe. It's his job to find out what happened to these women. Reid lets go. Takes a breath. And gets back to work.