*ੈ✩‧₊˚
˚⋆ ┊ TWO GHOSTS ┊ ⋆˚
☆⋅⋆ ─ act i. in the place of you and me
CHAPTER THREE — it's always someone you know
— warnings: violence/gore !!
✎
❝ there is no love like the love for a brother.
there is no love like the love from a brother. ❞
↳ ASTRID ALAUDA
⠀ ⠀ THE CRIME SCENE WAS HARDLY THE MOST GRUESOME NANCY HAD SEEN. The most unsettling thing about it was the familiarity. Nancy hadn't been the one to find the body of this particular kills the copycat was replicating in '98. But she'd spent years obsessing over those crime scene photos. Blaming herself for not noticing the signs, predicting what her Tommy was capable of.
"Shouldn'ta taken me this long," Nancy folded her arms across her blazer, exposing the badge clipped to her belt as Emily looked toward her with sympathy. She, Morgan, and Reid had been the only four agents sent to the scene, with Hotch and JJ staying back to welcome agents Riley and Gideon.
"You just got here, Chavez," But Prentiss' words did little to reassure the rage-filled agent.
"And there's already another body," To the untrained eye, Nancy was doing plenty to mask her anger. But Agent Prentiss was well trained. Every time she dug her nails into her palms. Every time she pushed a sharp breath through her teeth. Every little detail in her eye movements, her tone, it was all a dead giveaway to a profiler, "This bastard is still two steps ahead..." jaw clenched, Nancy's arms dropped to firmly grip her waist as her eyes landed on Reid and Morgan, blue gloves and rolled up sleeves combined as they crouched beside the young man's body, "I don't like being played,"
Emily nodded, although unsure how to proceed without poking the bear that was the infamous final girl, "You know what it could mean?"
Nancy looked up at the message painted across the lockers. He'd used more blood this time. Trailing down each letter to pool on the floor around the body. It wasn't her name this time. Nor was it the name of the victim. In fact, it wasn't a name at all. This time, it was two words.
"Remember me?"
Even when Nancy read the words aloud she couldn't make much sense of them. It felt almost too obvious.
Remember me...
Like she could possibly forget. But it couldn't be Tommy asking that. He was dead. Buried six feet under. She'd seen the body, she'd seen the grave. She put the bullet in his brain and she knew ghosts didn't exist.
"Suggests that... the unsub and I have a history," Nancy hadn't meant to phrase her words as a question, but she was undoubtedly less experienced than Agent Prentiss. Her theory could be very easily dismissed if she wasn't careful, "Think it could be someone I know?" she seemed almost nervous to ask. But she'd been through the betrayal of someone she knew, someone she loved, being behind brutal murders already. Surely it wouldn't hurt so much the second time around?
"Not necessarily," Emily looked far more upset than smug to suggest otherwise. Even if the betrayal of someone in her life being responsible would be painful, it would certainly narrow their search, "His obsession with horror movies, specifically Slash, could have led to an obsession with you. It's entirely possible that... a stalker could have a warped sense of reality. In which the two of you know one another, but in actuality, he'd be unrecognizable to you,"
Nancy sighed. She didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved, "And that once again lowers the suspect list to... anybody," the two agents took a step back to allow forensics to come through, rustling of their plastic blue overalls alerting Reid and Morgan that their time with the body was over. They crossed the room toward the ladies, ready to exchange information.
"No sign of a struggle..." Reid began, turning back to look at the trail of blood beside the body, "Just that the body was dragged,"
"From which direction?"
"They can't tell..."
Morgan folded his arms, glancing around at the glistening floors and ceilings, "Listen, ladies, I know you've probably never set foot in a boys' locker room in your lives but these places? These places usually stink," neither Emily nor Nancy could hide their amusement at that. It was no hidden secret that teenage boys smell bad. Along with any place pubescent boys tended to culminate.
"Oh, trust me, we know,"
Morgan narrowed his eyes, holding back the word smartass, "So where's the stink?"
That was an excellent point. Nancy had been so laser-focused on the message across the lockers she'd hardly taken the time to look around the actual room. For a locker room, "The unsub cleaned up..."
Spencer nodded, equally perplexed, "I mean, this place is spotless. Top to bottom," realizing that wasn't entirely true, he glanced between the body and his fellow agents, "Well, except for..."
"That's a deviation from the previous murders," Emily concluded, saving Reid from an awkward continuation, "both the ones from '98 and his own,"
"So why clean up after himself if he's just gonna leave the body there anyway?" questioned Nancy, glancing toward Reid, "Remorse?"
"After what he did to the kid?" scoffed Morgan, shaking his head, "I don't think so," the agent sighed, heading toward the fire doors around the corner from the main entrance of the school. Local police had already cleared the area, with tape separating law enforcement from the reporters and civilians. Morgan continued to explain as they walked, eager to get back and add to their evidence board before the 'ghost' claimed any more victims, "He's hiding something about the way he's killing these kids," continued Morgan, instinctively reaching for his sunglasses once his eyes met the light of day.
"I think we're gonna need two profiles," added Nancy, glancing behind her at Reid and Prentiss, "One for the Ghostface persona, and one for the unsub behind the mask,"
Spencer nodded, quickly taking his phone from his pocket and pressing it to his ear. It only rang a few times, and whoever was at the other end must have said something rather entertaining to earn such a wide smile, "Hey, Garcia,"
Right, the technical analyst.
They'd met before, very briefly. Not when consulting, but when she'd visited her brother at the BAU offices. Penelope Garcia was just about the coolest person she'd ever met. She said what she wanted, wore what she wanted. And she was absolutely a tech genius, "Do you think you could get me a copy of the original screenplay for Slash? Thank you," pocketing his phone once more, Nancy paused, just before they crossed the yellow tape, arms folded below her chest
"You wanna waste an hour reading the entire movie script?" Prentiss and Morgan audibly snickered, exchanging highly amused looks at what Nancy thought to be an innocent question, "What's so funny?"
"Don't ask," warned Morgan, lifting the tape so that Prentiss could pass under it. She turned to Reid, who too had a rather smug look on his face.
"Why not?"
"You'll be sorry!" sang Emily as Morgan followed her toward the black SUV. Nancy soon remembered the conversation they'd had earlier that day. About how the rest of the team had rather negative reactions to his factual tangents.
"Told you," he shrugged, although yet to answer her questions. Nancy only smiled, fingertips resting on the yellow tape although yet to lift it so she and Reid could pass through.
"Got some facts for me, Doc?" smiled Nancy, using her elbow to lightly poke Spencer in the arm as her hands remained firmly in the pockets of her leather jacket. Her genuine curiosity made Spencer's face light up like a kid on Christmas morning.
"Our conscious minds can process sixteen bits of information per second," he explained, reaching around Nancy to lift the tape himself, "Our unconscious, however, can process eleven million," it was visible that Nancy hadn't understood the relevance of a single word he'd said as she passed under the tape, glancing over her shoulder with a perplexed expression. Which didn't go unnoticed by the young doctor, huffing out a nervous laugh as he further explained, "I-I read fast,"
Nancy nodded, head tilted toward him. She'd become so distracted by their conversation she hadn't noticed the woman approaching them.
"Can you teach me how to do that?" Spencer's eyes narrowed in thought, as though readying himself not to hurt Nancy's feelings.
"Probably not," he confessed, although he soon realized Nancy had been joking by her amused smirk. Her reply was cut short, however, when a hard hand gripped her wrist, dragging her away from her fellow agent.
"You!" the woman's voice was hoarse, and it trembled with every word. She looked as though she hadn't got a proper night's sleep for years, her sunken eyes glassed over as she stared into Nancy's with deep sadness, "Haven't you caused this neighborhood enough pain?"
It took Nancy mere moments to recognize her. But familiarity was the opposite of reassuring. Vera Davis. The mother of one of the original victims. Alison Davis was the first to be found. She was sweet, and popular, but not a mean girl.
Confusion and anger merged as she tried to pull her arm free, not wanting to use her full strength on the more than middle-aged woman, "Mrs. Davis, I'm truly sorry for your loss, but we're doing everything we can to-"
Harsh strike to her cheek stopped Nancy's apology short. Then, and only then, did someone eventually come to her rescue. Officers appeared at either side, seizing Mrs. Davis, as, much to Nancy's surprise, Dr. Reid got between her and the grieving woman.
"Hey!" he barely addressed her, glancing behind to where Nancy's palm was fixed to her reddened cheek, "Get her out of here! Isn't your one job keeping civilians away?" Cameras had already begun to surround them by the time Spencer turned to Nancy, doing as best he good to block her from their view, "You alright?"
"Yeah..." Nancy nodded, although she was rather sure she was in shock, "Yeah, she's... got a point," but by what Nancy could only describe as a heartbroken expression on Dr. Reid's face.
"That's not true," he insisted, walking her toward the car as, finally, the uniformed officers managed to do one of their jobs properly. Keeping the press the hell away from her, "You're a victim too, remember?"
"But I survived,"
"And that's a bad thing?"
Nancy shrugged, trying her best not to raise her voice by shouting out a whisper, "To somebody!" she sighed, fingertips pressing into her bruised cheek from not only the slap, but the door incident mere hours ago, "This unsub has beef with me... maybe it's cause I lived, and somebody they loved didn't..."
❀
⠀ ⠀ THE TEAM OF FOUR MANAGED TO SNEAK IN A BACK ENTRANCE to avoid the slew of reporters anxiously awaiting Nancy's return. It was astounding to her, the way Prentiss, Reid and Morgan snapped back into action. How unphased at the fact that moments ago they were standing over a young man's dead body. Not that Nancy hadn't seen her fair share of corpses. Unfortunately for her, she hadn't yet learned the skill of not carrying those stolen lives with her.
Nancy hadn't long to dwell on this, however. Because the second she took a breath to compose herself. Have a chance to ask for a moment to herself, heads of confused officers seemed to stare faster than the sound waves bouncing off the walls to her ears.
"Hotch!"
"Sir, you can't just-"
"FBI," it took seconds for Nancy to recognize that frustrated tone. Eyes landing on her little brother across the room, the two began walking toward the source of the sound.
Their older brother.
"Uh-oh..." Eddie winced, beating his sister to meet Mateo, who simply shoved his little brother, with apparently reduced harshness, from his path.
"Hotch!" shouting in a police station had everybody wary, whether he'd flashed his badge or not, "Hotch!"
Eddie turned to his sister for support, only to meet the same firey eyes his older brother held, "Oh, shit-"
"Aaron Hotchner!"
"Mateo!" Nancy finally stopped the infuriated man in his tracks, but seemingly only so he had a chance to scolder her to her face
"No, I don't wanna hear a peep from you," pointer finger barely an inch from Nancy's nose, the younger agent swatted it away aggressively.
"This is not your decision to make," insisted Nancy, "I want to help!" Mateo only scoffed, the way he always would when his little sister made unapproved decisions.
"It's too dangerous," insisted the eldest Chavez, his attention still apparently split between his sister and staring around the bullpen for a familiar BAU face. He stepped forward, but Nancy simply got in his way, forcing him to stay put.
"Everything about this job is dangerous, you know that!"
Mateo shook his head, wry chuckle escaping his lips as though about to say something he'd been holding back for a long time, "Yeah, not with the K9 unit it's not! That was the deal!"
That infamous damn deal.
When Mateo discovered Nancy's interest in joining the FBI just like her big brother he was devastated. No, he was infuriated. He knew the dangers that came with his job and he didn't want that for his little sister. Even if their reasoning was the same. They'd both gone through significant trauma in the original murders in 1998. But Aaron Hotchner's BAU business card was never intended for the not-yet-infamous final girl. Mateo stopped talking to her for a week when he found her completed application to the academy on her computer. He all too quickly resigned from the BAU when he saw the recommendation letter left for her from none other than the unit chief himself. All this only two years ago, and still just to get her brother to talk to her again she had to promise to stick to training animals, not hunting serial killers.
Nancy took a deep breath, the only one of the two trying to contain their anger, "It is one case,"
"Don't bullshit me, Natalia!" something snapped the second she heard her given name. Nancy hadn't gone by that for a very long time. Even Tommy had called her Nancy.
"Don't call me that!" Nancy hadn't quite yelled, but her raised voice gained her some concerned stares along with the reassurance of Eddie's impending intervention.
"God, you're even dumber than I thought!" able to sense the shift in tension from his siblings, Eddie placed a palm to his brother's chest, although for Nancy he chose to simply raise a hand rather than push her.
"Take it easy, Matt," he warned, although, by the look in his eye, Nancy could tell he'd become doubtful that he'd warned the wrong sibling first. If there was one thing he knew made Nancy's anger take over faster than anything it was any sort of insinuation for lack of intelligence. To Nancy, hearing the word dumb was like Marty Mcfly hearing the word chicken.
"Fuck. You," Nancy spat, emphasizing every damn syllable as the venomous words hissed through seething teeth. For the shortest moment, a look of sympathy passed across his features. Deep down Nancy knew her brother had the best intentions. But his anger overwhelmed him. He had a habit of reacting rather explosively when it came to protecting the people he loved. A trait that, depending on who you asked, each sibling, fortunately, or unfortunately, shared.
"Give it a rest, alright?" this time, he did shove his brother. Eddie seemed even to shock himself upon resorting to any kind of physical action to separate his siblings. His voice was lowered when he spoke, leaning toward Mateo even if he knew Nancy was close enough to hear, "Don't you think she's going through enough, man?"
Mateo looked just about like he was going to stop, turning away before spinning on his heel to confront his sister once again, "I'm the one that found that house!" Mateo snapped back in a whispered yell. Quick to disagree, Nancy let out a wry chuckle that mimicked her brother's.
"Yeah, just in time to find everybody but me dead!" voice trembling with rage, tears pricked her eyes but still she stood her ground, "That is my name written in those girl's blood!" fingertips pressed to her collarbone, Nancy repeated the words like saying them over and over would hammer them into his brain, "My name!" harsh shove delivered to his shoulder, "Not yours! What the hell am I supposed to tell their parents? That this guy wanted me all along and their kids died because of it?"
Mateo's eyes fluttered closed, only for a moment. But Nancy was grateful nonetheless. Grateful that he was seemingly trying his best not to continue their screaming match but to use his words as an olive branch, not a weapon.
"I'm just trying to protect you-"
"I know," the suggestion only seemed to anger her brother further. If she knew of the danger, knew that he only wanted to keep her safe, why was she fighting him? None of it made any sense.
"Then why are just giving this guy exactly what he wants?"
"And what is that?"
"You!" Nancy tried her best not to seem stunned into silence, tongue poking at her cheek as she did her best to assess every micro-expression on her brother's face.
"Agent Chavez!" whirling around in unison, Nancy didn't need to be looking at her older brother to sense his smug 'he meant me' attitude. As far as he was concerned, he was Agent Chavez. Hotch still had his pal on the door of the captain's office, just about the only isolated room in the place other than an interrogation room, "Both of you," clarified the unit chief, "A word?" the two started toward the room at the same time, forced to stop in their tracks when the space between the desk was too narrow for the two of them to pass. In all honesty, had Mateo not been such a pain in her ass from the second he stepped into the precinct she may have let him pass. But, like any little sister, she was not about to be the bigger person. Elbow jabbed harshly into his rib, Nancy barged past the eldest Chavez. Mateo stopped not in shock but exasperation, arm still raised in the air from how hard it had swung back after Nancy's shove. Nancy could only guess that the gaze Hotch had fixed over her shoulder was one matched by her disapproving older brother.
The door had hardly clicked shut before Mateo opened his mouth, apparently more willing to argue with the unit chief than his sister (despite neither of them being BAU).
"We had a deal, Aaron," Nancy frowned, although she doubted she'd caught on in time to mask her shock in hearing the use of Hotch's first name, "You call me first."
"I did," Hotch's attempt at reassurance didn't get him far, it simply earned him an eye roll, "Believe me, your sister wouldn't be here if I-"
"Thought there was another way?" Finished Mateo, arms firmly placed on his hips as he paced the room. Nancy held herself with far less confidence, all of her cockiness swept away in her efforts to stay on Hotch's good side (since he brother was veering in the opposite direction), "Yeah, I heard that before. You ever stop to think this is exactly what this bastard wants?"
"Of course,"
"Then why give it to him?"
"I'm not," Hotch emphasized. He'd hardly moved their entire conversation, too busy watching the way Nancy couldn't decide if she wanted her arms folded or hanging at her sides. The way Mateo paced the room, thoughts racing as quickly as his footsteps.
Nancy scoffed, "I don't have time to go over this again," she muttered, efforts to hold back the wry chuckle an obvious struggle, "We are in a sequel,"
Something in Mateo snapped after that. As though it were the most outlandish suggestion he'd ever heard, "This isn't a fucking movie, Nance!"
"It is to him!" when Mateo yelled, Nancy was quick to yell right back, face to face with no younger brother to force them apart, only the disapproving stares of a unit chief> This time it was Nanct that took a step back, fingertips tracing through her knotted hair, "Just... have to figure out what kind of movie he's making,"
"Gee," sneered Mateo, "maybe a horror movie?"
"It's not that simple,"
"Then explain it to me!"
Hotch had crossed the room to the gap now large enough to stand in between the siblings, his orders firm although knowing he held little authority over the agents, "We will," he began, gaze fixed on Nancy at first before turning to her older brother, "Tomorrow,"
"What?" the siblings questioned in chorus.
"Go home," Hotch continued, "get some rest, we'll regroup in the morning,"
Mateo seemed taken aback, confusion taking over, "I just got here-"
"It's not a request, it's an order," Nancy counted herself lucky that Hotch had been to busy assessing her brother to miss her rather dramatic eye-roll.
"Yes, sir," although professional in choice of words, the tone in which they left her lips was far from the usual respectful one received by actual members of the BAU. Perhaps that was why Hotch was so willing to let it slide. He'd earned the respect of the siblings enough to have the ability to issue an order despite not having the legal authority to do so. Beeline toward the door, Nancy didn't utter another word as she hurried toward the only brother she currently liked.
"Ed! We're leaving," much to her surprise, Eddie was now accompanied once again by a nervous-looking Lexi Sparrow. A rather smart decision, actually. As, even if Nancy was apparently the catalyst for all this chaos, surrounding herself with skilled FBI agents certainly raised her chances of survival.
"Is that safe?" he asked, Nancy's answer being abruptly cut short by her older brother's angered tones.
"You got two FBI escorts," argued Mateo, adding a rather surprising gesture to both Nancy and himself. Eddie feigned a grimace, unable to mask the grin at a joke he'd yet to make.
"Gross, we're related-"
"Shut up," scolded Mateo, joking smack delivered to the back of his little brother's head.
"Hey!" Eddie was quick to place his palm protectively over the inflicted area, eyes narrowed in Mateo''s direction, "That was funny!" was his only defense, hoping to at least crack a smile in these troubling times. Someone had to be this movie's comic relief, and it sure as hell wasn't Señor Mustache.
❀
⠀ ⠀ NIGHT FALLING UPON THE CITY ONLY MADE THINGS SCARIER FOR NANCY. No matter how many times Agent Morgan tried to reassure her that, based on the profile, an attack on her or her family would be unlikely. It didn't fit the pattern; repeating previous murders. But the unsub already changed the message he wrote on the wall, what was to stop him from changing his targets?
Mateo hardly spoke to his sister during the entire (escorted) journey. Eddie had his questions. As always, he tried his best to keep the mood light between his siblings.
Nancy had grown to prefer her daily journey up the stairs to her apartment, considering the other option was getting in an elevator she just knew would end up her final resting place if she set foot inside it ever again. It also gave her a reason to walk past a certain someone's apartment.
Mateo and Eddie rarely approved of Nancy's boyfriends at the best of times. Let alone when she was the apparent target of a copycat serial killer, of which the original was said boyfriend.
"Nance!" he called, speeding toward her at a pace that had her brothers already in bodyguard mode, "Hey, are you okay? I- I tried to call," reaching to place a hand on her shoulder, Mateo inserted himself between the two, shoving the man with such harshness he almost lost his balance.
"You better back the fuck up,"
Gripping her brother's arm almost harshly enough to bruise, the young agent pulled him back, firm glare shot in his direction, "Mateo!"
"Woah, man!"
"Nick, shut up!" she pointed, standing between the two although rather displeased with both of them. Nick leaned toward her, she couldn't make out if his concerns were feigned or not.
"Can we talk?"
"No," the brothers responded before Nancy could either get a word out, their chorused words the same, threatening and monotonous tone. Lexi couldn't help but smirk, arms folded across her chest as she leaned against Nancy's apartment door.
"You're suspect numero uno, hombre," Eddie's eyes narrowed as he glanced over his shoulder at the smiling young woman, innocent shrug displaying her lack of regret.
"You can talk all you want," Eddie finally spoke up, his usual place as the voice of reason between his siblings now abandoned as he stood at his big brother's side, "We're staying right here," Nancy stared pleadingly, but the two only shot back the exact same authoritative glare. Desperate, she turned to her friend for support, but even Lexi seemed suspicious of the newly introduced love interest. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a small, silver tin, peppermint discs rattling against the metal as it popped open.
"Altoid?" her offer was met with a dramatic sigh, eyes rolling to the back of Nancy's head in exaggerated exasperation,
"Oh my god..."
Nick looked desperate, glancing over Nancy's shoulder at the three unimpressed bystanders, "Listen, I get who the killer was last time but I'd never do anything to hurt your sister-"
"How do you even know this guy is trying to hurt her?" quizzed Mateo, brows fixed in a fiery glare.
"There's nothing reported to suggest that, do you know something we don't, Nick," even his name was spoken with disgust when nodded Eddie, apparently deciding to imitate his brother.
"Would you shut up?" She grasped Nick by the arm, guiding him to his apartment door where her hushed tones couldn't so easily be heard by her bodyguard-insistent brothers. She'd yet to let go, soaking in the care she hoped to be true when the man she'd grown so fond of stared back at her, "Listen to me. you need to get as far away from me as possible,"
"Nancy-"
"I'm not asking, I'm telling you," her tone remained firm despite the way she couldn't stop her shaking hands, "If you stay, your life is in danger,"
"I thought he was just copying the kills from..." Nick trailed off, careful about going into any detail, "Before..." Nancy breathed in, because truthfully she wanted to explain everything. But the realization soon set in that only was she not allowed to share that information, but it would be downright stupid too. No matter how much she hoped it wasn't Nick, it was foolish to rule him out.
"I can't talk about that..."
"Nancy, what's going on, is this guy after you?" the young agent sighed, ignoring the tears that had begun to prick her eyes. She cupped his cheeks, even when she saw Eddie so close to needing to be physically restrained.
"Just promise me you'll stay away,"
"What? No, I'm not gonna-"
"Promise me," the urgency in Nancy's tone had Nick frozen with concern.
He nodded slowly, "I-I promise," his brows knitted in a mixture of worry and confusion. But it all began to fade when Nancy's lips met his, soft and gentle; all she craved was comfort. Even in a kiss, she knew to be one she'd used instead of saying goodbye.
It wasn't easy, simply leaving him in the hallway, but it had to be done. It had to be. Not just for Nancy's safety but, if he wasn't the killer, his own. Despite it having ended so abruptly, Mateo seemed none too pleased about the conversation at all. Her older brother had become rather protective over the years. To not fault of his own. You didn't need to be a profiler to know what happens to the eldest sibling after the loss of both parents.
It wasn't until the three found themselves alone, Lexi having escorted herself to a bathroom, and the door locked behind them as they wandered inside Nancy's, now well-guarded, apartment complex that he actually felt the need to speak. Eddie could tell by his brother's sideways glances they were hoping for FBI agent sibling talk. But lying on the spot wasn't exactly his forte.
"I'm gonna go... be anywhere else," sarcastic smile shot toward his older sister, Nancy couldn't help but stare back pleadingly, despising the idea of being once again ridiculed by their big brother. Eddie seemed to care far less than when he'd separated their argument before. Maybe his issue was the public setting, after all, not the actual fight itself. She forgot her little brother could get rather protective too. Although, he held far less authority, having spent the first decade and a half of his life being shorter than her.
On the other hand, Mateo towered over Nancy from day one. And his authority only grew once they'd lost their parents. Stepping into a parental role and all that.
"What the hell were you thinking?" he sounded like a disappointed parent, barely peering back although Nancy assumed that by now he could probably hear when she rolled her eyes.
"I can't let anybody else die because of me,"
Mateo shook his head, "You don't have control over whether this psychopath kills anyone," he argued. Nancy knew he was right. That wasn't going to stop her from feeling guilty. She crossed her livingroom slowly, leaning against the kitchen island with her head in her hands.
"I just... I can't stop... flicking through faces in my mind," confessed the junior agent, grateful that the angered mask her brother had held was beginning to fall to one of sympathy, "The guy that has my order memorized at the coffee shop. The lady that cuts my hair. The grumpy old man that owns the bodega on ninth..." a wry chuckle escaped her pursed lips, "Hell, even people at work. I keep going through everybody I know and I just..."
"You think you know him?"
"Usually how it is, right?" shrugged Nancy, eyes once resting on her brother now glued to the floor, "It's always... someone you know..."
Mateo scoffed, "That was just some bullshit tagline the producers made up for the movie," but Nancy remained unconvinced, reaching into her top cabinet to pull out a small glass. Alcohol certainly would have helped with all the nerves. However, if she were to be called back for any reason. Or, god forbid, attacked, she needed to be sober. After examining the glass for mere seconds, she held it under the sink, opting for water over any other beverage that might not only lower her inhibitions and her instincts.
"You of all people should know the odds of this bastard being a stranger," Nancy hadn't meant to let out a laugh that time, but she couldn't help it. Somehow she continued to attract these kinds of people into her life. She'd been through this kind of thing once already, what the hell was so special about her to become a target yet again?
Familiar and, albeit boring, simple ringtone interrupted her thoughts.
Saved by the bell...
She sighed, slipping the phone from her pocket and thinking nothing of it as her brother, who had become all too cautious of ringing phones questioned, "Who is it?" Nancy sighed, pulling her phone from her pocket
"Probably Hotch," but, rather than a familiar name, Nancy's phone glowed in the darkness, the screen displaying a number, not in her contacts, "Matt?" the tremble in her voice was more than enough to let her brother know her fear was real.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
This brought back memories. None of them good ones. Flashes of blood splatters, of Thomas Milligan pleading for his life, of ringing landlines and teenagers hanging from garage doors flooded her mind in broken, overwhelming fragments. Nancy's thumb hovered over the green answer button, and Mateo very nearly snatched the phone from her.
"No,"
"Matt-"
"Don't you dare," Nancy understood his concern. But that didn't mean she wasn't aware that sometimes, there was no choice but to play the killer's game.
"It could help us catch him,"
But Mateo shook his head, hand yet to release his sister's wrist as he spoke, calmly and eerily, "You cannot play his game. It's what he wants-"
"I know his game," argued Nancy, sick of hearing him tell her something she already knew over and over, "If I don't answer somebody else dies," but in all their arguing, the ringing had already stopped. She'd run out of time, "Shit..."
She'd half expected the ringing to start again.
What she didn't expect were the loud tones of Flo Rida to echo in her apartment. God damn apple bottom jeans song scared the ever-loving daylights out of the eldest Chavez siblings. Confusion turned to realization turned to amusement, because of course that was the song their little brother had chosen for his ringtone. But their amusement was short-lived.
Eddie...
"Eddie!"
"Eddie, do not answer!"
"Eddie, give me the phone!"
Older siblings scrambling to beat one another to the guest room, Nancy and Mateo barged through the door to find Eddie staring at his phone with far less fear than they had been. He practically jumped out of his skin at the sight of them, almost dropping the ringing deathtrap altogether.
"What?" he yelled at a height only dogs could hear; far too much innocence behind eyes that had yet to grasp their urgency.
"Give me the phone," demanded Nancy, hand extended whilst Mateo opted simply to talk his brother down.
"No, you hang that up,"
"Do not hang up!"
It was then that the penny finally dropped, Eddie's eyes turning wider that Nancy thought physically possible "Ohhh, is it- is it-"
"We think so," sighed Mateo.
"Gahhhh..." Eddie grimaced, the phone once gripped protectively now held at an arm's length between his fingertips.
"Eddie... please," slowly, Eddie let his sister take the ringing device. The entire exchange felt far too serious for ...boots with the fur... to still be rocking in the background. Mateo watched it all with a clenched jaw but he daren't snatch it from her.
Eyes fluttering closed, Nancy forced her thumb to press the brightly lit green telephone on her brother's keyboard, never thinking she'd miss the sounds of Flo Rida when fearing for her life.
"Shit..." Mateo's curse was barely above a whisper as he watched his sister slowly bring the phone to her ear.
Closley, she listened, but couldn't hear any kind of breathing at the other end. In fact, she couldn't hear a thing at first. A slight hint of static, like some kind of radio frequency, or a walkie-talkie. She could hardly tell how long she waited for whoever was on the other line to speak.
"Hello, Nancy..."
Fuck this shit.
Nancy almost hung up then and there. If it weren't for her pride.
No, her anger.
How very dare this wannabe psycho replicate the worst trauma she'd ever suffered in her life? How fucking dare he take children's lives for the sake of a stupid movie?
"Long time, no stab,"
God, even his threats were pathetic. Cheesy one-liners taken straight from how to write a horror movie for dummies!
Nancy still hadn't said a word. She did, however, instinctively reach for the gun yet to leave the holster attached to her belt. It was no surprise that Mateo had done the same, placing himself between Eddie and whatever impending danger awaited them because of something as simple as a phone call.
His voice remained low and calm as he used the arm once fixed on his brother to make a rather important call, "Garcia, it's Chavez. I need an emergency trace on my brother's cell, you got his number?"
Nancy was seething. Smoke may as well have been billowing from her ears as deep breaths escaped her recently parted lips. She couldn't let him win. Couldnt let him hear her scream, hear her begging for her life. She wasn't about to ask the usual questions. There would be no who are you's. No what do you want's.
Instead, she was going to warn him.
"You listen close, asshole," always a good opener, "I'm gonna give you one chance to turn yourself in," turning a corner, her gun moved almost quicker than her vision, back still against the wall as she somehow lost sight of her brothers, "I don't think I need to tell you what happened the last time a serial killer decided to fuck with me,"
"You... shot him..." words rolled off the tongue as though he didn't quite believe them, as though he knew something he couldn't possibly know, "we all know the story by now, Nancy," the grotesquely familiar voice paused, laughter ringing in her ears like the scream of a banshee, "The story... you tell everybody else, anyway,"
Nancy scoffed. This wasn't the first time someone claimed to know the truth about what happened the night Thomas Milligan died. So far, nobody had managed to guess correctly. In fact, the only people that truly knew were the ones that happened to seal that file. Locked it up and threw away the key. And Nancy didn't suspect that Agents Hotchner or Gideon had lost their minds and gotten behind the mask in the years it had been since they'd seen each other.
"You gonna ask me to play your game yet?" Nancy snapped, using the muzzle of her revolver to peel back the curtain that a potential murderer was hiding behind. So far, no Ghostface, "Cause I'm getting kinda bored,"
"Oh, and we wouldn't want," The voice at the other end chuckled. He paused for a long moment, as though awaiting confirmation from some other voice in the apartment, "How's that technical analyst of yours doing?"
Oh shit.
Something was very very wrong. How the hell could this guy possibly know who her brother had so urgently called?
"What?"
"Where am I, Nancy?"
God, she hated the way his voice lingered every time he said her name. Like he relished in the fact he knew exactly who she was. Everything there was to know about the infamous final girl, he knew. But him? He was just a voice. A faceless character hiding behind a worldly-known moniker.
Suddenly, she could hear her brother again. It was only panic that could have made him mistakenly raise his voice, "Garcia, slow down-"
"Better yet... how did I know that it was you that answered the phone?"
Nothing was true until she heard it from her brothers. He could be watching them from afar. It could have been a lucky guess. Nothing but her older brother's words would mean-
"Nancy! Call's comin' from inside the house!"
A terror-inducing scream ricocheted throughout the entire apartment, like a bullet piercing through her ears and suddenly, Nancy's heart dropped to her stomach. She'd gotten so swept up in keeping the unsub on the phone long enough she'd forgotten the one person unaccounted for.
"Lexi!"
Not again.
Not again.
Not again!
Two words spiraled over and over and over as she begged not to find her friend dead in her bedroom already. But dead she was not. Her scream rang through the halls again and Nancy kicked down the locked master bedroom door open, gun aimed at what she hoped would be an easy takedown.
Nancy barely had enough time to register the knife slicing through her forearm to disarm her before it wedged itself into her abdomen. Revolver dropped to the ground almost as quickly as she did, black fabric overwhelming her as she came face to face with the mask from her nightmares.
The blade slived into her once again. Searing pain made her vision fuzzy, white-hot flashing between total darkness and the ghastly bone-white mask. The room span, ears ringing from the sheer force that her head had slammed into the wooden floorboards. Concussion impending, Nancy managed to muster enough composure to catch managed the blade from heading toward her face.
She groaned, struggling both in pain and fear before a warning shot rang through the apartment. Mateo couldnt get a clear shot, not without risking Nancy's life as well.
Suddenly, the masked figure was pulled back off the panting brunette. But her reassurance was short-lived. Because it wasn't her big brother she'd been saved by. And, in saving her life, Eddie had just helped a masked murderer to his feet.
The gun spooked the killer, but not enough. Aim thrown, the kill-stab was nothing but a hail mary. But it still went deep. And it still took any breath Nancy had left in her lungs to see the blade slice through her brother's neck. Nancy spat blood, trying to force herself to fight. To get to her feet as her brother slid down the wall. As the killer made his escape.
"Garcia!" Nancy had somehow managed to get ahold of her older brother's phone, scrambling to her feet as she spread bloodied handprints over her newly eggshell-painted walls, "We- we need an ambulance," she hadn't meant to hang up so abruptly. To cut off Penelope before she knew if any of them were okay. All the poor analyst had heard were gunshots and screams and now a request for paramedics but not a headcount of who made it out alive.
Made it out alive.
Oh god...
"Lexi!" screeched Nancy, coming around a corner but where she expected to find a body she found something much more horrifying.
Lexi covered in blood.
Lexi... holding a knife.
Lexi in complete fucking shock with tears in tracks of smudged mascara down her cheeks, not a wound visible enough to be concerned about.
What the ever-loving fuck was going on?
"I- I hurt him, I think," Nancy headed toward her, ignoring the way she'd yet to regain her panicked trembling best friend, allowing Nancy to slowly and gently take the bloodied knife from her shaking hands.
"Are you hurt?" Nancy's attempts to get through to her were futile. She could barely register if she had been hurt. She was frozen completely. Eyes glued to the curtain swaying in the wind through to the fire escape. He was running. He was gonna get away.
But there were more pressing matters than the capture of a killer, for the very first time in Nancy's life.
"Hey, hey, eyes on me, little brother," Mateo's loud begs filled her eyes and pricked her eyes but she was no use to them staying in one place. She wasn't a doctor, all she had to offer Eddie was vengeance, "I gotcha, Ed, come on, stay with me,"
Forcing Lexi to walk, Nancy lead the shaking young woman out to the hallway, giving her Mateo's phone as she glanced around the room in an attempt to find the one that had started all this. Not hers, but Eddie's.
That's when she noticed it. The line was still open. And this time, his labored breaths were heard through whatever shitty voice modifier he'd altered. He was hurt, and getting sloppy. And Nancy was gonna fucking kill him.
But if she was about to go after this bastard, she was on her own. Mateo's hand was stuck, firmly glued to his little brother's spraying throat even with the reassurance that cops and paramedics alike would show up in a matter of moments. And Lexi wasn't a federal agent. She wasn't back up, she was a terrified civilian that may very well have to watch her best friend's brother die.
"Nancy... are you there?"
Even wounded, he still all too cockily sang her name. Somehow, the anger and adrenaline were getting her through the pain. She'd bled worse and fought harder than this before, and that was before years of intensive FBI training.
"I'm coming for you," Nancy promised, the taste of blood doing little to discourage her from far too casually leaving her apartment with only the knife she'd just been stabbed with to defend herself.
The young agent hadn't noticed just how much the blow to her head had harmed her vision. She could just about make out the pair of uniforms at the end of the hall, the sound of her own voice sending pain down her spine as it rang through her ears, "Hey... " It came out as a groan at first, words choked back in her throat by nerves or blood or both "Hey!" Nancy's hand remained firmly on her bleeding stomach, unable to stop the trail she'd been stepping in to create footprints to accompany the bloodied handprints on the walls. If the unsub was behind her, he'd surely have no trouble finding her.
It hadn't yet occurred to Nancy how odd it was for neither officer to respond when she had so desperately called to them. The body fell the second Nancy's hand met the officer's shoulder. Even his eyes were open, shock painted on them even as they stared into nothing, "Oh... god,"
Nancy felt terrible that her first instinct was self-preservation. But she could help the way her survival instincts pressured her into finding a better weapon than a kitchen knife "Shit!" Nancy hadn't meant for a fearful sob to escape her lips upon discovering their empty holsters.
How the HELL did one dude manage to do all this damage?
Laughter at the other end of the line snapped Nancy from her saddened, guilt-ridden state.
"For an FBI agent, I would have expected your brother to have better aim..."
Shakily, Nancy brought the bloodied cell phone back toward her ear, "You're so full of shit," sneered the young agent, "He didn't get you, why haven't you come out yet, huh? For a serial killer I would have expected you to be less of a fucking coward," Knife making its way around the corner first, Nancy extended the weapon with caution.
"I have a question for you... Nancy..." the unsub's laughter boiled her blood, "who's bedroom window... was the killer watching through at the end of act 1?" The young agent stopped dead in her tracks. First question of the night and she had no idea what he was talking about, "Come on... how well do you know that first movie?"
Floorboard creaking behind her, Nancy whirled around suddenly, finding herself at the top of the stairs, "There is only one movie, you fuck!"
"You think they won't make another one after this?"
Nancy shook her head, confusion and anger amalgamating into a horrified, concussed mess, "Is that what you want? What you're doing this for?"
"Oh, that's for your little FED squad to figure out..." Nancy hated how he so easily revealed little details about himself. Because he knew. The bastard knew there was so much of their conversation she just wouldn't be able to remember because of the concussion he'd caused, "Answer the question. And I might let your brothers live,"
Nancy scoffed, feigning fearlessness, "My brother's got a gun," she spat, "I think I'll put my money on him," Blue and red flashed through the hallway windows before Nancy had time to register the sirens blaring outside.
"And the cavalry come for the damsel in distress. You never could put up a good enough fight,"
On a normal day, Nancy would have known better than to feed his taunts. But she didn't know if her little brother was dead or alive. She didn't even know if she would be able to catch the bastard today, "Yeah? Tell that to Tommy Milligan,"
That wasn't only a threat. It was a promise. A promise that this bastard's fate whatever it may be, was going to be worse than the ex-boyfriend she'd been forced to murder.
"Ohhh, there she is!" and now she really was giving the guy exactly what he wanted. Every word was exactly what he wanted to hear, "There's that killer I know and love!" Nancy's hands were shaking, back against the wall as she made her way around another corner. She barely knew where she was anymore, the once familiar apartment doors now numbered with gold lettering her fragmented mind wouldn't allow her to make out, "But would anybody else?" Nancy's breaths only got faster with every word, her palm resting on the fire escape door although she'd yet to force it open, "If they knew what the... sweet little final girl really had to do to make it out of that house alive?" she couldn't trust it. There was just no way. no real evidence, that he had any clue what she'd been forced to do that night in 1998. Pausing to think, Nancy's forehead slowly leaned forward to meet the glass panel showing the dark, empty stairwell. She was just so tired. And she was losing too much blood. But she couldn't let him win. She had to stop him, even if it killed her, "Maybe they'd all want you dead too!"
Arms gripped her from behind once again, and she very nearly stabbed them with the shaky blade.
"No- no!" she found herself crying, lifetime flashing before her eyes. She couldn't die at the hands of some copycat, not when she survived the real thing. She didn't even know if her brothers had survived.
The voice that spoke wasn't gravely, wasn't mocking her, "Chavez, it's alright!"
"No!" she still screamed, arms flailing despite the knife having been taken from her.
"Nancy, it's me!" it was then that Nancy realized the harshness of the grip wasn't actually hurting her. Her state of panic had made her assume that anyone and everyone around her was the enemy, "It's me," the voice panted again, "It's me," and Nancy turned with teary eyes the second his hold had loosened enough.
"Hotch?" Nancy trembled, weak in the knees as blood from the stab wound in her stomach trailed down her leg. Aaron had yet to let her go, gently keeping her upright with his hands on her triceps.
"Yeah," the sudden sense of safety overwhelmed her, Nancy fell forward into his arms, the unit chief welcoming her into a fatherly hug, "I've got you, it's alright," The shaking junior agent hadn't had time to process the fact she was crying, "It's alright..." She'd hardly noticed until hot tears hit the ground beneath her bloodied shoes. Shock was the only thing stopping her from sobbing, her labored breaths from both panicking and fighting and all she could hear, even above the sirens blaring through broken windows.
The bastard had gotten away.
Nancy had let him get away.
And that meant her torment was far from over.
Whoever was next on this Ghostface wannabe's kill list, tonight was just the beginning.
hi its been forever im sorryyyyy
this was the most fun ive had writing smth in SO LONG i just love action scenes sm hopefully i did them justice :)
if u wanna lmk if that final fight scene was shitty or unrealistic bc it's one killer v 4 bitches feel free i TRIED to make it kinda real but ykw if amber's tiny ass managed to kill dewey then this mf can take on two FBI agents 🫢
once again apologizing for spelling mistakes n poor writing cause ive read through this a million times but if it stays in my drafts any longer i'll explode
ANYWAY TY FOR 80k READS BTW THATS SO AWESOME
also wanna add that lowkey imagine red right hand playing over the beginning scene at the crime scene with one of those overhead zooms yk just iconic things
ty for reading and voting
and commenting it really does make my day!
<3