nina cried power [SPENCER REID]

twenty-nine.

Nina swallows. Another three weeks in hospital doesn't sound appealing to her, that's for sure.

"Isn't this technically keeping a hostage? Which is, you know, illegal?"

He gives her a flat look over his shoulder.

"Oh, wait, I forgot, you're above the law," Nina gasps. She lets her lips curl. "That little law enforcement badge you've got is a great get out of jail free card."

Spencer turns, rolling his sleeves up and watching her, still with those flat, blank eyes, but she's got his attention, and she knows it. May as well take advantage. She lifts her arms, still cuffed together.

"This is my father's wet dream right now: me trapped defenceless behind a locked door. Who knew you guys were so similar?"

With a forward tilt of his head, he sends her a look so icy that it actually manages to shut her up (I know, I couldn't believe it either), and she averts her eyes and bites her lip. Maybe that remark was unfair.

Her eyes leave his face -- she can't hold a stare like that -- and land on his body: jacket off, white button-up with rolled sleeves, navy tie and trousers of the same colour. Stood up like this, eye-level and on the same playing field after so long of her being bed-ridden, feels suddenly strange. Tense, even, and the intensity of it all suddenly presses in on her.

What is she doing? What is her life?

She can't start thinking about that. If she does, she'll panic, and then things will escalate the same way they did in the car so long ago. Calm.

When she blinks herself back into awareness, it is to the sound of Spencer speaking to her. "One day I'm sure I'll balance the chess board, but for now I have to go," he says evenly, and she meets his state again: his head is slightly tilted to the side, trying to figure her out -- gage her reaction before she even gives one. "I'll never stop trying -- whether that's trying to live, or to be free, or just to be rich."

After a moment, she realises. "My letter."

"I feel like you've always known my moves before I've made them," he continues to quote, like she hadn't spoken, and he starts slowly toward her, watching her all the while. They are foreign words, spoken back to her like this, so flatly and after so long since she wrote them. "A mark of a good chess player, I'll give you that." Another step closer, hesitant. He's almost... Prowling.

Nina swallows. Calm, she thinks. Slow and steady, like her fencing teacher had always said. "You're cutting out words."

"But you know I remember it all," he replies calmly, another step taken. He's in the living room with her now, a few feet away. "So I want to know what changed."

It takes her a moment. She's too caught up in the sight of him to think. "I... You know what changed. I found out about Ed's dirty little secret--"

"Okay, let me rephrase," he says, and now he cuts across the space between them with three short strides, and pulls her hands up by the chain of her cuffs. He shakes it slightly, gesturing to the confinement. "I want to know who to believe. That letter, or you." His eyes search hers, flicking between them quickly.

"Believe me? You need trust to believe what I say, and you've not had any since the day we first met," Nina snaps. "Which is ironic, considering I'm the one who's stuck to my promises. I swore never to harm you, and I didn't. I told you the truth, about everything." Her eyes hold his, steady. The next words, she spits. "It should be you in these cuffs."