"Can't believe my brother gave you two weeks off" Sean chuckles as we lay in bed.
"I can. It was part of our deal when I proved him right about the CIA agent." I giggle and he smirks.
"So, what do you wanna do first?" Sean asks and I pretend to think.
"I might have a few ideas." I say seductively and he smiles and brings me into a kiss.
Right as I'm about to crawl on top of Sean my work phone rings. He looks over at it and sighs and I know it's nothing good.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me." I groan as I get off of Sean and go check the phone.
"This is a whole other level of cock block, Hotch." I say as I answer the phone and Sean groans.
"You're with Sean?" Hotch asks trying not to sound weird about it.
"Where else would I be?" I scoff but there's a pause on his end and I can tell there's something wrong.
"What's going on?" I question and sit up.
"You didn't get any strange calls did you?" He asks.
"No. Why?" I ask.
"I just did. The person said 'Don't waste time on the first victims. They were unrepentant, bad men. She's the important one. Remember, everything starts at the beginning. There won't be much time. The youngest male holds the key. You must help him save her.' And then he hung up." Hotch explains and I furrow my brows.
"Do you have any ideas what it could mean?" Hotch asks and I shake my head.
"No. None." I respond.
"Want me to come in?" I ask about work.
"We had a deal, two weeks." He retorts.
"When did you get the phone call?" I ask, going back to the original subject.
"Ten minutes ago." Hotch answers and I think for a minute.
"Did you call the others yet?" I ask, knowing that Derek and Elle are in Jamaica.
"No. I was hoping saying the words to you might trigger something in your mind." He confesses and I sigh.
"Sorry, I got nothing. I sometimes need more than just words by verbatim." I explain.
"I think it's best if you come in." Hotch finally decides and I huff knowing he wants me to use my abilities to track this person down.
"Alright, I'll get my stuff together." I say and hang up.
"What? You're leaving? Just like that?" Sean asks confused to what just happened.
"Someone called your brother with a message about victims. This is part of my job, Sean." I explain.
"Can't he have someone else come in?" Sean asks.
"I'm going to be brought into this one way or another." I scoff.
"So, just like that, Aaron calls and you're getting ready?" He scoffs.
"Sean, we deal with some pretty sick individuals. And this one called his house." I say and he sighs.
"When will you be back?" Sean asks.
"I don't know. I'll give you a call." I shrug and he huffs.
"What?" I ask knowing something's wrong.
"Why not take a job in New York?" He asks yet again.
"We talked about this, plus, we agreed this wasn't a serious relationship." I remind him as I get dressed.
"What if it is for me?" He asks and I stop for a moment.
"Sean, we made a deal. Plus, serious relationships don't last in my line of work." I remind him.
"My brother has a wife." He counters.
"Yeah, and he sees more of the office and road, than her." I scoff.
"So what? I'm just a fuck buddy?" He asks.
"That was our agreement, nothing serious." I shrug.
"Yeah, well. Maybe I want to change it." He challenges and I shake my head.
"The only change is ending it." I state.
"Fine." He huffs and I raise my brow.
"Really?" I ask.
"You said it yourself, this isn't going anywhere." He says and I huff.
"Fine." I say and get my stuff and leave.
————
I head to the airport and am about to get my luggage through the check out.
"Danika." Hotch shouts as he rushes over to me.
"What are you doing here?" I ask as I put my phone away.
"I have the jet waiting, I'll explain on the way." Hotch says and grabs my luggage.
"What's going on?" I ask as I follow him to the car.
"Elle's been arrested for a murder. They found a body in her bed, without a head." Hotch explains on the way to the jet.
"Damn." I scoff as he hands me the file.
We get to the jet and I sit down and he sits across from me. I flip through the file but don't get any images flashing in my mind.
"Anything?" Hotch asks after a few moments and I shake my head.
"Sorry for pulling you away from your vacation." He says not looking up from the file.
"It's cool." I shrug not wanting to get into it about his brother.
———
We get to Jamaica and interrupt Elle's interrogation. She's in a nighty and Hotch offers her his jacket since the room is so cold.
"You good?" He asks me noticing I'm in a t-shirt.
"Yeah, cold doesn't get to me." I shrug and he nods.
We get Elle out of there after Hotch proves that she couldn't have possibly killed the man because she wasn't even in Jamaica when he was killed. We meet up with Derek and head to the jet.
———
We get back to the BAU and everyone is on edge. We figure out that the man who was found in Elle's bed was named Frank Giles. He was a career criminal. The other victim, the one that was only a head that Gideon found in a box, was Martin Harris, a fetish burglar, and a child sex offender.
Hotch then reads off the messages that he got to the group.
"You must help him save her." Hotch repeats.
"So there's a 'him' now, too?" Elle asks.
"I think he means Reid." Gideon clarifies.
"We need to regroup." Hotch announces and we head to the meeting room.
"So, clearly we have a psychopath intent on drawing us into his game." Hotch states.
I just lean back in my chair, closing my eyes so I can focus on what they talking about. Sometimes when it's this early in the morning I have a hard time focusing because my brain is still trying to wake up.
"Playing with us." Gideon adds.
"Then let's return the favor." Elle suggests.
"He kept telling us repeatedly to save her. What 'her'?" Derek asks.
"Items he sent must be some kind of clues." Gideon points out.
"Let's get them up on the board." Hotch suggests and the team starts listing them off.
"I got a Nellie Fox Baseball card from 1963 and I got a head in a box." Gideon starts us off.
"If only his name has been Jack." I mutter and Derek scoffs.
"I got a rare butterfly in a shadow box." JJ adds to the collection.
"And repeated messages to 'save her.'" Hotch contunues.
"I got the decapitated body and a nice visit to the Jamaican police headquarters." Elle scoffs.
"Reid called from Nevada. He's on the way back with a skeleton key and a note he got, too." Gideon explains.
"And the guy who called me said "The youngest male holds the key." Hotch adds.
"Unsubs, they don't contact us this way. I mean, they might taunt us, dare us to catch them, but they don't drag us into their fantasy." Derek states confused.
"Why not?" JJ asks not quite up to speed.
"Because their sexual fantasies. I mean, taunting us is a show of power, but making us the object is...I don't know what the hell that is." Derek explains.
"Danika, have any special insight for us?" Elle jeers.
"All I can say is that he seems to know who you guys are." I shrug.
"How do you know that?" Elle asks.
"Because you don't taunt the police like this, unless you know everything about them. You need to know how to hit their weak spots." I explain my thinking.
"There's something about the baseball card. Nellie Sox was one of the stars of the 1959 White Sox. I went to almost every game with my father that year. Fox was my hero." Gideon says and JJ turns around.
"I collected butterflies when I was a little girl. That's how I knew what butterfly was in the box." JJ realizes.
"Like I said, weak spots." I shrug and Hotch furrows his brows.
"I got an anonymous message." Hotch says not understanding how that could be personal.
"And I got a police raid." Elle adds.
"Well, that easy. Hotch is the leader of the team, of course he would get the first message, at home. That shows that the unsub isn't afraid to get personal with the leader. And Elle, you specialized in sex crimes before you joined the BAU. The man in your bed was a rapist. I'd say that's pretty personal." I scoff as I explain what their's mean.
"She's right. He knew exactly where we were. Hotel in Jamaica. Gideon at the cabin. Reid in Vegas, you at your home." Derek continues.
"But why didn't you or Danika get anything?" Elle asks confused and Derek looks over at me.
"Could be there's more to hand out at a later time." I shrug.
"Or you already knew all of this about us." She states and I narrow my eyes.
"You can't seriously think this is my doing." I scoff.
"Why not, not like you haven't toyed with us before with bodies." She states and I get up out of my seat.
"I'll fucking toy with your mother's dead body." I snap, getting fed up with all her insinuations.
"Did you just threaten my family?" Elle asks taking her gun out and pointing it at me.
Hotch quickly steps in between the two off us as we stare each other down, getting ready to fight, or in Elle's case, shoot.
"That's enough!" This wasn't Danika. She was busy in New York when I got the call." Hotch says but doesn't even try to actually defend me.
"You seriously think I'd do something like this?" I ask with my arms crossed.
"That's not what I said-." He starts saying and takes Elle's gun.
"Take a breather." He orders Elle.
"Why not her?" Elle argues.
"Because I know you'll come back." He growls and she storms out of the room.
"It's not your style." Gideon speaks up and I roll my eyes and sit back down.
"So, how did the unsub know all of this?" JJ asks, changing the direction of the discussion.
"He got that from the Bureau computers." Garcia says as she walks into the room.
"Your locations are always in there so they can find you if they need you. And I checked the log. The hacker was definitely in the personnel folders. There were room numbers to the hotel in Jamaica, the address of Gideon's cabin...there's a lot of information in those databases." Garcia continues.
"Have you figured out how he was able to get into the Bureau's computers?" Hotch's asks and Garcia bows her head.
"I'm still working on that." She says.
"Garcia, if you know something..." Hotch states staring her down.
"No, it's...it's just...I...I was playing a game yesterday. An online game. Not on the Bureau computer's. On my own personal laptop."
"No, Garcia. No, no, no." Derek mutters and shakes his head.
"I don't understand." Hotch states confused.
"Wireless internet." Derek huffs.
"By wirelessly hooking into the net here to get online, the hacker could've gotten into my computer first and I have far less protection on my own laptop." Garcia explains and my eyes go wide.
She sees and gulps and I pound on the table and shake my head.
"And he could have gotten into the entire Bureau computer system this way?" Hotch asks.
"Yeah, it's possible." Garcia admits.
"Playing a game? How could you be that stupid? Information files. You have a responsibility." Gideon huffs.
"I know, I'm so sorry. But I found him." Garcia says with tears in her eyes.
"You what?" Elle asks as she comes back.
"I know who he is. The hacker. His name is Frank Giles. He lives in Arlington, Virginia four miles from here. I have his address."
"Garcia, you said Giles?" Derek asks.
We race off to Gile's place only to find him stabbed with a sword. On the wall in his blood is written a message; "Here thy quest doth truly begin"
"He's definitely playing with us." Derek shakes his head as he checks out the body.
"His identification checks out. That's Frank Giles." Elle says.
"There's a big old bag of money sitting right here on the dresser." Derek says.
"So Giles took Harris to Jamaica to kill him and then the unsub kills Giles."
"Yeah, but he paid him first."
"That's how hitmen work, right?" Elle asks me but I block her out.
"He said that these were unrepentant, bad men. Are we looking for some kind of vigilante?" Hotch asks.
"No, the bodies are nothing but a way to get us interested. They're game pieces. The killings are secondary." Gideon explains.
"Well, this guy likes to write things in blood on walls. Thy? Doth? Quest? Thy quest doth truly begin? I mean why start phrasing things like this now?" Elle questions.
"Yeah, all the other messages were in modern English." Hotch confirms.
"Maybe this is the first one the unsub actually wrote." Derek suggests.
"So we're looking for Shakespeare?" Elle scoffs.
"There's something etched onto the blade." The CSU lady says.
"To learn of what should next be done, leave the blade till the note be none." Hotch reads it out loud.
Hotch has Elle move to her left and they start figuring out that the light casts a shadow that'll point to something.
"3pm." Reid says as he arrives.
I zone out until they figure out the placement of the shadow and Morgan finds a box in the wall. He tries to open it but it's locked.
"Youngest male has the key." Gideon says and looks at Reid and he gets a knowing look on his face.
He comes over with the key he got and opens the box with it. It's a music box and Reid finds another note inside.
"Never would it be night, but always clear day to any man's sight." Reid says the message out loud.
"That was worth it." Elle scoffs.
"The lid. Little tab right under the lock."
Gideon says and Derek opens it and finds a CD and a lock of blonde hair.
We head back to the BAU and watch the video. It's a man in the shadows talking about a young girl. It shows her locked up and distressed.
"Now please listen closely for there is one rule and this rule must be followed. The one rule is, only the members of your team may participate in the quest: Jason Gideon, Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan, Elle Greenaway, Spencer Reid, Jennifer Jareau, Penelope Garcia. A quest must be completed in the proper way or it isn't a quest, is it? That's it. One rule. Simple. Now, you will be receiving an item soon that will hold the final clue you will need to finish the quest. You will find you will also need a book which has inspired many in adventure like mine. Believe me when I tell you I truly hope to see you all soon. It will mean a successful end to this adventure for us all. And the youngest is no longer allowed to participate in the quest, if she continues in the quest, there will be consequences." He ends the video with and everyone looks over at me.
"You've gotta be kidding me. Son of a bitch thinks he can tell me what to do." I growl and pound my fist in the table.
"Go home." Hotch orders me.
"What?" I ask shocked.
"You heard the video." Hotch says and I scoff.
"Like I give a damn what that lunatic wants." I shout getting pissed off.
"Leave the room! That's an order!" Hotch shouts and I storm out the room, slamming the door behind me.
I pace back and forth by my desk and growl. I flip the desk over and suddenly feel a hand on my shoulder.
"What's going on with you?" Hotch asks as I turn around to face him.
I know I can't tell him the actual reason. That Garcia could've possibly screwed over my hitman work because she played a game on her computer.
"Sean and I broke up." I admit and he furrows his brows.
"What? When I called, you were in New York..." He states confused.
"We had an argument after the call. I broke up with him. He thought what we were doing was something more...I didn't want anything serious and I told him that..." I huff.
"I'm sorry. I don't know what to say." He apologizes and I shrug.
"Hey, everything's gonna work out with the case. Don't worry about it too much. Okay?" He asks as he puts his hand on my shoulder and I nod.
"Haley." Hotch says as he looks over at the entrance as she walks in.
Hotch takes his hands of my shoulders and walks over towards her and I see she has a yellow envelope in her hands.
"I've been trying to call you, but you haven't been picking up." Haley states worried.
"My battery died, we just got back." Hotch explains.
"A man came to the door with something he said you would need it right away. That a girl's life depended on it." She says and I take the envelope out of her hands.
"He came to the door?" Hotch asks.
"Yeah." Haley says as I open the envelope.
"Danika!" Hotch scolds as I open it.
"Calm down, opening a package won't matter." I scoff but he grabs the package away from me before I can look inside.
"You heard the rules." Hotch growls and I roll my eyes.
"What did the guy look like?" I ask Haley.
"Danika, that's enough!" Hotch warns.
"Look like? I don't know. Young. Dark hair."
"Did he look injured?" I ask and Hotch grabs me and pulls me out of the room.
"How many times do I have to say it?" Hotch growls.
"Hotch, the bastard went to your house!" I say.
"Which is exactly why you need to stay out of this. Go home. That's an order!" He orders and I clench my jaw.
When I don't move he slams me against the wall and traps me between him and the wall. His eyes are dark and his stare is deadly.
"I will drive you there and lock you up myself if I have to. Now go! Until this is over, I don't want to see your face again!" He orders as he pushes himself off the wall and points to the door, after I give him one last glare I huff and leave.
I get to my apartment and walk inside. I take my phone out and text Elle, knowing she'll break the rules for me.
She updates me on the case. The lock of hair is from Rebecca Bryant. She's been missing for two years. And what Haley brought in was a paper with a bunch of numbers on it. Elle says that it has to be from a book. I huff as I lay on the couch and look over the numbers, trying to figure out what this all means.
I turn the tv on only to see JJ on the news. I shake my head knowing that that was against the rules, but then again, letting me continue was too.
I fall asleep after a few drinks only to wake up to a sharp pain in my chest. I open my eyes and see a dark figure standing above me. In his gloved hands is a sword that's entering my chest.
"You broke the rules." He says in a wraspy voice.
He slides the sword out of my chest and I see the blood gleaming off of the metal. Spots starts blinding my vision but I hear a door slam shut.
I grit my teeth as I grip the blade of the sword in my hand and slowly pull it out of my own body. Every second is a second filled with agonizing pain. I hear the sword finally clang onto the floor with a thud and the sound of metal against wood.
I try to sit up but pain shoots through my body. I look down and see a pool of blood on my chest and everything starts fading out of view too quickly.