When The World Ends

Chapter 6: Review

I shook at the memory of him tied up, eyes dull, barely able to move.

"Agent Reid was rescued from Daniel Frost's former prison at 5:31 PM and taken to the hospital. Daniel Frost was not there." Hotch continued. "We considered the possibility of a female companion, but did not find anything until the next Monday, when Garcia found a connection to Lacey Felix. She was arrested late Tuesday night, and we flew out to question her Wednesday morning. Agent Reid questioned her and managed to extract information on the location of Daniel Frost. We flew to Frost's location and questioned him, then received the information that Lacey Felix was involved in the case. The team flew back to Florida, where Lacey was being held, and managed to get confirmation of this fact."

It felt almost silly to be reviewing this, but I knew it was necessary in case of an investigation.

"Is there anything I missed?" Aaron looked up at us both.

I shook my head. "In terms of the facts of the case, that's all."

Spencer agreed.

Hotch closed the folder. "Now, off the record, how are the two of you doing?"

Spencer looked at me. How do we answer that?

"This is off the record," he repeated. "What ever you want to, or don't want to disclose is welcome."

I nodded. "We're working to manage the new facts of the case and the psychological effects in order to maintain a healthy relationship. There are some parts of our relationship that we've chosen to put on hold, but we're doing fine."

"I'm glad to hear that." Hotch nodded. "If either of you ever need something, you know I'm available."

Spencer smiled and nodded. "Thank you."

***

"I know all of you have heard, part of the training here are the simulations of different situations you may face in the field. This may involve speaking to unsubs or victims in a variety of scenarios. They vary every time, don't try to cheat and figure out what they are; we want to see you think on your feet and work with your peers." I pulled up pictures from some scenarios of the year before. "These don't always look realistic, as you can see, but ignore that and focus on what the challenge is."

David raised his hand. "Are we allowed to practice?"

"Always!" I nodded. "I'm actually happy to provide the scenarios we used last year if you'd like to think about what you'd do in those situations. You can ask myself or your other teachers what they're looking for, but it's mainly just what we cover in class. Just take a breath and trust what we've taught. We will have another class between now and the simulations, you'll be able to ask questions before then."

I knew the simulations were exciting; I'd heard discussions about them in the halls. Getting to question your teachers, treating them as unsubs or seeing them as 'helpless' victims was fun, and the agents participating appreciated that.

"Now, let's get into today's lesson." I clicked forward in the presentation. "Let's talk about dealing with unsubs when they're in the middle of a sexual action."

There were several groans.

"Listen, you never know when you're going to walk in on an unsub masturbating." I looked out into the theatre, holding back laughter. "I certainly didn't. The much more common variant of this is encountering unsubs mis-assault, but never discount anything as a possibility."

A student raised their hand. "Did that actually happen?"

I sighed and nodded. "Yes, yes it did. Brian Owen, unsub in an annual family annihilator case. We found his home address and I was unfortunate enough to be the first one into his bedroom."