You had been on this case for almost a week by now. The bodies had been doubling in numbers on the daily. It was always the same thing. The girls were in abusive homes calling for help on 9-1-1 from small towns in Louisiana and would turn up on highways in Mississippi across state lines.
You all knew who the unsub was but it was like every time you got close to catching him, he would disappear and more bodies would show. You were ready to be done with this case. It brought a lot up from your past, and you were certain that the team was catching on.
You stood outside the police station trying to present the media with an idea of what we are looking at for the unsub. You could barely wrap your head around the fact that he was so close yet so far away from your grasp.
"His name is Alex Jones," you began to explain to the media on a news broadcast, "He is a tech junkie who hacks into 9-1-1 help hotlines to answer calls from wherever he is." you paused for a second trying to decide where to go with your next words.
"He goes undercover as a social worker to the houses of young girls that are being abused, and picks up the children." you tightened your lips as you tried to keep the nausea down. Your brain was replaying your head times when your father would hit you and it was hard for you to disassociate your past issues from the case.
That sting of a slap you had been feeling all week hung on your face as you could feel the hand that hit you grab your arm and pull you. The grip your father held on your arm increasingly tightened as you felt yourself being pulled into another room for him to yell at you.
Screams of a deep angered voice echoed through your head. You pictured his face up inches against yours practically spitting on you as his harsh words flooded out of him in an irate tempo.
His screams contained obscenities that belittled you to nothing but a piece of shit child that was worth nothing to him, nothing that his money paid for. Nothing his bank account could fix like it did to fix your sister into the perfect child.
You shook the thoughts that angered your head as you had to finish talking to the media "From there he rapes, beats, and murders the already abused, bruised, and broken girls that he has taken." your eyes began to water as you forced yourself to continue your words
"He dumps the bodies across state lines each time he dumps them, but each dumping ground is in a different part of Mississippi making it harder for us to track him." you finished finally stating, "If you see a man like this please call this number on the screen." As his picture flashed up next to you with a number at the bottom of it.
The worst part was that he was taunting you. He knew that we knew it was him, and each time he would dump a body after he knew we were watching him, he would carve a new number into the stomach of the girls.
It was talking every bone in your body to not break down in the middle of the broadcast, but as soon as it was over you practically sprinted away from the media. All in an attempt to find an empty room you could cry in.
You practically punched through the front door of the police station before brushing past the rest of the team that was staring blankly at a wall of dead ends. They all watched you as you flew past them, you made no acknowledgment of them as you stepped into the empty conference room.
You sat in a chair that was set at the table as your body practically caved into itself. Your elbows rested on your knees and your hands covered your face as tears streamed down your face.
Breathe in fours y/n, breathe in fours,
it'll make it stop, it'll make it stop.
Please stop
You kept thinking that but it wasn't stopping. Your breathing increased as you felt your body completely tense up. It was getting harder and harder for you to breathe. You felt as if you were going to completely dissolve.
"Four... Three... Two... one..." you whispered to yourself through breathless thoughts.
"Four... Three... two... one..." you whispered again hoping that saying it out loud would make your panic stop
You felt a gentle hand on your back and your body viscerally rejected it.
"STOP," you yelled as you felt the hand retreat.
"Please don't hit me" you sobbed out silently.
"Hit you?" the voice behind you was filled with confusion. You were pulled out of everything as you realized what you just said out loud. You turned around to see Aaron standing behind you with a lost look on his face.
"I- didn't mean... You weren't" you just looked at him speechless, fearful of what the conversation would lead to.
"Are you okay? y/n, why would I ever hit you?" he said to you as he closed the door to the conference room making your conversation separate from the team and privatized. You watched as he walked back towards you.
You just sat there, you were frozen, stuck somewhere between how to deal with the fact that you just told Aaron not to hit you, or how to explain why you were sitting in a room sobbing.
walking closer to you and you didn't answer. Your words would simply not flow out. All you could do was just sit there, your eyes were finally drying from the tears stopping and yet you still had no control of yourself.
He pulled out a chair and sat sitting across from you facing you. He moved his hands to your knees to try and get a sense of stability within you and when he touched you again you flinched before relaxing into his touch.
"Y/n, I am asking you this not as your boss but as a... um... friend... who is worried about you," he said calmly to you. the word 'friend' coming off of his tongue like poison, he didn't mean it like that. "I know you have a lot on your mind and clearly this is becoming too much, but I just need you to talk to me. I can't help you if you won't tell me what is wrong."
His words were like fire to your ears. The thought of you having to open up to him about your family and their abuse was making you sick to your stomach.
You stood up breaking his contact with you finally getting a hold of yourself. You walked to the door in an attempt to leave the conference room. "I'm okay, really its nothing, we need to get back to the case there are so many dead ends that-"
You were cut off by a hand on your shoulder and words that interrupted your lie. "Y/n, just a minute ago you told me not to hit you, I don't really know what to think. It obviously isn't nothing." He looked at you with eyes that practically begged for you to give him something that told him what was wrong.
As his hand moved from your shoulder to your arm you turned around and looked at him. You were drained and so was he. All Aaron wanted from you was an explanation or a small hint as to what was wrong but you couldn't do it.
You didn't want him knowing. If he knew he would think the worst about you and you really did not want that. You did not want the pity that came with the family talk because, to be honest, you were sick of the fake pity.
You just looked at him, your stare into his eyes was blank, lifeless, and fragile, and he knew it too. "Please, just let me know you are okay," he said finally before you completely broke. All at once, every emotion that you tried to hold in from him was out.
The tears streamed down your face at an alarming rate and you were a mess in front of him. Aaron's arms opened to take you in for a hug, and unlike previous times, you welcomed it. You fell into his arms as he wrapped them around you, one moving to hold your head and one that began rubbing circles on your back as you cried in his arms.
"Shhhh, It's okay," he said as his comforting touch was calming you down. "Princess I am here, nothing is wrong, you are okay," he finished while his touch on you became tighter and his care for you was evident.
You pulled away from him slightly and when you looked up into his eyes something inside told you to open up to him. Your body wanted nothing else but to let him into your life so badly.
But force of habit took over and you killed it. "I need to be dismissed from this case," you said as his grasp on you loosened and you were about to break away from the hug.
The hope that you would open up to him for once about what was wrong drained from Aaron's face as he heard your words. He wanted to know what was wrong so that he could help you. He just wanted you to be okay.
He spoke with disappointment but it was understanding. "I think that is the right thing right now. I will have a ticket and plane ready for you tonight but go back to the hotel and get some rest, please. You need a break."
You nodded before Aaron pulled you back in for another hug. This was a short tight one, but it was something different than just a hug. It meant more, but what was the more that it meant?
You let go of Aaron and turned to leave the conference room to go back to the hotel.
"Y/n, wait," he called out to you
You turned around and looked at him confused with why he said that. And when you locked eyes with him it looked like he lost what he had planned on saying.
"Just please be safe." that was all he said clearly distraught.
"I will Aaron, I will."
You walked out of the room leaving behind Aaron. You walked past the team looking only ahead of you not wanting to be questioned.
"Y/n, are you-" Emily stopped talking as you made no mention to her words. You left the police station and got in an SUV.
Before you knew it, you were on the plane, in a cab, and back at your home where you felt safe and calm. Your phone exploded as you landed, texts from the team, Emily and Aaron leaving you voicemails but all you could think of was your house.
When you got home, it was barely only 12 in the afternoon. It had almost been a full day since you last saw the team and you regretted leaving without telling any of them except Aaron.
You walked through the door of your house and your body was pulled to your kitchen. The alcohol that hid in the cabinets was a siren that called your name. You opened the cabinet and reached for the bottle of vodka.
But your brain was pulled from the siren's trance when your phone rang.
You declined whoever called and grabbed the bottle of vodka.
But your phone rang again
And you unscrewed the lid to the titos bottle.
And a third call came through your phone.
You put the bottle down and answered the phone
"Hello?" your voice groggy from the flight
"Y/n" Aarons careful voice played through the phone and a brightness shone into your head
You capped the lid to the vodka when you realized you were just going to get mindlessly drunk and focused on Aaron who was worried about you over the phone.
"We just finished the case, I am coming back tonight but the team is leaving tomorrow, I will be back before 7" he finished telling you his agenda but not asking anything of you because he wanted you to decide if you were up to be with him after this case.
"Can I come over when you get back? I just... um, I really don't want to be alone right now." your words came out quietly like you were scared to ask a question in class at school.
"Always" a word his vocabulary to you began to frequent since the cult case.
You sighed relief into the phone "okay" you finished as he continued,
"I'll see you when I land princess." his nickname for you sent goosebumps over your body.
"I... uh... I hope you fly safe, party boy" you said while you felt a smile begin to form. You hung up the phone.
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