❛ 𝑪𝑶𝑳𝑫 𝑨𝑺 𝑰𝑪𝑬 ❜
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•☽.⭒✻❙ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐈𝐆 𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄 ❙✻⭒.☾•
𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒎 𝒊𝒏𝒗𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒈𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔 𝒂 𝒃𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒐𝒃𝒔𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒌𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒓 𝒌𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓𝒔
❝ 𝐰𝐡𝐨'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐮𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐰?! 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐲 𝐦𝐜𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐩𝐢𝐝 𝐝𝐮𝐦𝐛 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐲 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞. ❞
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𝑵𝑶 𝑫𝑰𝑮𝑮𝑰𝑻𝒀
𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒕, 𝒅𝒓.𝒅𝒓𝒆 & 𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒆𝒏𝒑𝒆𝒏
❛ i can't get her outta my mind, i think about the girl all the time ❜
𝑆𝑃𝐸𝑁𝐶𝐸𝑅 𝐻𝐴𝐷 𝐴 𝑃𝑂𝐼𝑁𝑇 when he said that Valentina runs away from her problems. She does. And tonight, she was running right towards the bottom of a bottle. The BAU had the night off and the next day, so they had all gone out drinking at a bar. Valentina, who was still loathing herself for how she was acting around Spencer.
Hotch had been making sure Valentina was okay, but she was pretty drunk. He didn't want her to get into any danger, especially since Valentina is quite literally an idiot when she drinks. It's a strange contrast to who she truly is.
Hotch, Haley-- Hotch's wife, and Valentina were all sitting at a table together while Emily had brought back drinks for them. She smiled as she set them down, announcing, "I'm back!"
"Hey, cheers!" Hotch exclaimed, everyone taking their own drink and lifting it in the air. "Cheers!"
Everyone took a sip of their beer, but Valentina kept going. She was trying to drown her problems in alcohol, which was not one of her most healthy habits, but it's what she learned growing up around Alessandro, who had the same coping mechanism. Haley was impressed, yet concerned by her ability, "Wow, haven't you had enough to drink?"
Valentina put her arm around Haley's shoulders and spoke with slurred words, "Haley-- can I call you Haley?"
"Sure." She said with a small laugh, seeing as how that was just her name. Valentina continued, "Here's the thing, Haley. My heart is like a shirt lost in the back of a closet. There will be days where you find that shirt and be like 'huh, that shirt would make me look hot, even though it's impossible for me to look more hot' and so you wear the shirt. You get compliments on that shirt 'cause it's new to other people and you look hot in the shirt, you know? But then, a different shirt gets put into the back of the closet. And you know, maybe it's not even a shirt? Maybe it's a pair of pants or a jacket? But the moral of the story is that you look so good in the shirt that I would literally fall in love with you."
"And how is that a symbol for your heart?" Emily wondered, but Valentina had already forgotten what she was talking about. "Who's talking about my heart?"
"Oh my god, you're drunk." Emily laughed, which forced Valentina away from Haley, who continued her conversation with her husband while Derek was still dancing like a madman with a huddle of women around them.
"I am not drunk! I know exactly what is going on, and who I'm talking to, and what the square root of nine is. It's...it's...three! It's three. Who's the genius now?! It's not Booky McStupid Dumb Pretty Face over there with his little dimples and his little scar near his hand and his stupid everything." Emily, who knew the details of what was going on between Valentina and Spencer, wasn't shocked to find out that this drunken state occurred because of this. "Oh, so this has to do with Reid."
Valentina put her hand on her friend's shoulder as she expressed, "I love you, Emily Prentiss, you know that? I love you so much and that's so easy to say! I can say it, so I'll say it, you know? 'Cause I'm the shirt. We're all the shirt!"
"What are you talking about?" Emily asked as Valentina stood up from her seat. She stuttered, "I'm talking about the...I'm about the...about..."
Valentina just left. Emily watched her stumble away in her drunken state, but she was going over to Spencer and Garcia. Emily could see she was at least around her friends, so she'd be okay. Although, because it was Spencer, Emily knew that Valentina would probably say something stupid, which she did.
Valentina sat down right next to Spencer in the booth and leaned against his side as she whispered, "I need to tell you a secret."
"Val, what are you talking about?" Spencer breathed out, clearly not wanting to speak with her. He was having a fine time with Garcia and actually telling her what had been happening, so with this new information, Garcia quickly left the group and went to join Emily so that they could have a moment to themselves.
"No, I'm serious, okay? This isn't like the secret that the earth is flat. Everyone knows about that, but the government is still trying to cover it up. This is like secret-secret." Valentina specified. Spencer let out a breath, understanding that she was drunk and not thinking straight, so even if this hurt, he went along with it, "What is it?"
"Okay..." Valentina began as she patted his chest. "Don't tell my boyfriend, but I think you're really hot."
"I am your boyfriend."
"No way, dude! That's awesome!" Valentina held out her hand for a high five, which Spencer hesitated to reciprocate, but he high fived her. He didn't really want to speak with Valentina at the moment since his scars from not hearing the words 'I love you too' were still pretty fresh. Spencer spoke with pain in his voice, "Valentina, what are you doing?"
"I'm doing the words, you know? I can say the things with my mouth. You can too and I don't like that 'cause it makes me feel like the closet shirt. I'm the closet shirt, Spencer!" Spencer had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, but Valentina just continued on, "I love things, you know? I do! I really do! But me and you, Spence, we're like pants. There's two leg holes and two legs, it makes sense. It's not one leg hold, that's a skirt and skirts are weird. They shouldn't be a thing. It's a one pant leg pant. You're the skirt, Spencer. You're the single pant leg, but it should be regular pants, you know? We gotta be pants."
Spencer could tell that this was hurting Valentina too. She doesn't get drunk unless something's gone wrong. He knew that she felt guilty about all of this, but that doesn't change her feelings towards Spencer. He wished that he knew if she loved him or didn't, not knowing was so much worse.
As per usual, the BAU's schedule has it out for them. They got called in for another case, but between having to go home and actually get their things for work, to JJ preparing the case, and getting ready to get on the jet, it took about three hours to actually get started. Before they actually got on the jet, Emily had helped sober up Valentina since she was really no help in that state.
The two girls were in the BAU women's bathroom before they were going to get on the jet. Valentina was leaning against the wall with a pounding headache, her hangover not being a help either. Emily gave her a bottle of water to help her out a little, which it was. Emily's presence too was helpful. "Hey, you okay?"
"You know that saying, 'you can't love someone if you don't love yourself?' Well, it's true." Valentina spoke quietly, not really having the strength to do anything more. She was tired, had a pounding headache, and generally felt awful, emotionally and physically.
"What do you mean?" Emily wondered, earning a laugh from Valentina. She smiled and shook her head as she admitted, "I fucking hate myself."
"Valentina, you're the most confident person I've ever met in my life." Emily pointed out, to which Valentina scoffed. "Please, it's fake. You know, I walk around like I'm so strong, but...god, I hate myself for being so weak. What I let that psycho do to me? He controlled me, he took me, he hurt me, and I let it happen."
"What, are you talking about your abduction? Valentina, that was not your fault. In no way was that ever your fault." Valentina wasn't even specifically talking about her abduction. It could have been applicable to Alessandro as well, but this was Emily's first instinct. She comforted, "You could not have stopped that from happening. You could not have controlled what happened to you and it is not your fault that something bad happened."
"Are you sure? Because things just keep happening. The only love I've ever felt has been poisonous. I mean, my Aunt Di, who was the only mother I ever really had, was taken from me and now I have to hear conspiracies about her death all the time. So now, I'm stuck with my real mother that criticises every little thing I do. And I could probably count on my hands how many times I saw my dad growing up 'cause he was always in his office, trying to be the next goddamn Plato! Then, all my brothers ever did was treat me like I was less than them, except Victor, who did love me and I loved him. But that love was destroyed by those stupid chemicals he put in his body because he overdosed in my bathroom, and that's not even the worst of it! How am I supposed to love Spencer if the last person I truly loved, deeply, and romantically loved murdered people because he loved me so much...The last time someone loved me, they turned into a serial killer..."
Emily held Valentina's hand in hers, trying to comfort her as best she could, but she had no idea that Valentina was struggling because she was so against the idea of love because she's been a neverending battle against love. "I'm so sorry, Valentina."
"I can't love him. I don't have good enough luck for this to actually work." Valentina admitted, but that brought Emily to an assumption, "So, what are you saying? You want to break up with him?"
"No, no. My life is already a downward spiral of decay, he's the only thing keeping me going. And I do...you know...I do feel that feeling for him, but if I say it out loud...it's real. I just want to live in a dream where I can love him without consequence, but that will never happen."
Valentina has spent her entire life running away from love and running towards manipulation blindly. Her family dynamics were never perfect, her relationships were toxic. Nothing about love and Valentina made any sense. She has become so used to healing after tragedy, but not getting to be perfectly okay. Now, Valentina has someone in her life that has made the grass seem greener, made the sun shine brighter, make everything seem not so bad. Spencer has changed her life in such a positive way, and Valentina had never been more afraid to lose something.
She was still in a bad hangover state, but Valentina was able to get on the plane. She just needed some more time to feel a hundred percent, but it was good enough for her to start thinking clearly. With everyone on the plane and Garcia on the phone, JJ began to break down the case, "Alright. Georgia. The Kyle's, Dennis and Lacy, were murdered three hours ago in their suburban Atlanta home, but by the time we heard about the case, it was only an hour."
"Geez, an hour?" Valentina was shocked that it was such a quick response time, to which Morgan was also quite confused, "How'd they get there so fast?"
"One of the unsubs called them and told them that the other was about to murder the victims." JJ explained, to which Morgan scoffed. "You're kidding."
"From inside the house. According to the dispatcher, the first male sounded terrified and begged them to get there because the other, who they both identified as Raphael, was about to kill the 'sinner' that live there." JJ explained what the call had been about, but the specific wording that the unsub used was what caught Valentina's attention, "Sinners?"
"The 911 centre is currently sending me a copy of the tape." Garcia informed from her place on the other end of the phone. Spencer was more curious to know, "How fast was the police response time?"
"Four minutes, twenty-six seconds. During which time, Raphael managed to do this." JJ put a picture on the table in front of Hotch and Valentina, but everyone else could see it. It was the victims with bashed in heads, bloodied faces, disfigurement that didn't even make them look human anymore. It was barbaric.
"In four and a half minutes?" Emily was shocked that someone could do all of this in such a small amount of time. JJ needed to tell them about the victims, "Mr. Kyle is a dot-com millionaire. His company is one of the largest employers in the community. There's going to be media coverage. Also, when they arrived, the police found this displayed prominently on the bed."
JJ put forth another picture of a page of the bible, splatters of blood along it, which looked like it had been ripped out straight from the book. Hotch looked at what verse it was, "Revelation, Chapter six, Verse eight."
"These guys are killing sinners, which means they're on a mission." Valentina acknowledged as she rested her head in her hand, still feeling quite sickly and the plane was not helping. Spencer added onto her point, keeping it strictly professional, "And mission-based killers will not stop killing."
"'And I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and his name that sat upon him was Death. And Hell followed with him.'" Hotch read aloud the bible verse. Emily was still looking at the crime scene photos, which made her too feel sick to her stomach. "This is a bad one, isn't it?"
"Unsubs with a cause are never good." Morgan pointed out, but this was when Garcia had actually gotten the important missing piece of this puzzle. "Guys, I just got the 911 call from the Georgia State police..."
"911, what's your emergency?"
"I'm at 1527 Chestnut Drive."
"I know where you're calling from, sir. What's your emergency?"
"He thinks they're too greedy. They have too much."
"Too much what?"
"Stuff. Possessions. Things they don't need. Hurry!"
"You're calling because these people have too much stuff, sir?"
"No, I'm calling because Raphael-"
"That's enough."
"I don't want to-"
"He's calling because Raphael is going to kill the sinners that live here."
"I'm sorry, did you say somebody is killing someone?" Garcia stopped the recording since that's all that there was, but because of the two different unsubs they heard, Emily separated them, "Well, Unsub One definitely sounds frightened, maybe he's doing this against his will."
"I doubt it. He whispered." Valentina argued, knowing that none of this was by force. Hotch did bring another theory to light, "He could have called out to save them instead of calling 911."
"Not if he had a gun to his head." Morgan contradicted, but Gideon too knew that this had to have been willingly, "If he had a gun to his head, why would he have dialled 911?"
"The second unsub said Raphael was going to kill someone. Is there a third?" JJ wondered, but because she isn't a profiler, she wasn't aware of the textbook differentiating characteristics to unsubs, but Spencer was there to explain, "Referring to oneself in the third person is not uncommon for an unsub. Ted Bundy gave detailed accounts of his murders, but he never admitted to doing it. He would just say 'the killer.'"
"So, I'm going to go ahead and run the name Raphael through the Georgia criminal databases as well as our own." Garcia volunteered, earning a nod from Hotch. She hung up the phone so she could get straight to work before Hotch took back over, "A killing team on a mission in rural Georgia. We know what that means."
"They're not going to stop until the mission's complete." Morgan answered the question before Hotch started to assign positions, "We need to hit the ground running. JJ, we need an inside picture of the victims. Victimology can be critically important in a mission-based spree. Prentiss, go where the bodies are. Examine the wound. They managed to kill two victims in four and a half minutes. We need to know how. I'm going to the Atlanta Field Office and go over case files. It'd be unusual for a first kill to be this efficient. Reid, Morgan, Valentina, you go with Gideon to the crime scene. We land in less than an hour. Everybody try to get some rest."
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Gideon, Morgan, Valentina, and Spencer were all at the crime scene with the lead on the case, Farraday. Morgan and Valentina had stayed downstairs to see if anything was out of place or there was something else they could find there while Spencer and Gideon were upstairs in the bedroom with Farraday. That's where the actual murders occurred.
Gideon could see that there was something bugging Spencer, it was incredibly apparent via his facial expressions. "You okay?"
Spencer looked up at Gideon with confusion, so he elaborated, "You seem unhappy."
"I am. It's just some stuff with Val." Spencer spoke vaguely. He didn't want to give the whole story, especially with Farraday there and them currently working the case, which Gideon understood. So, he only asked, "Trouble in paradise?"
"More like a tsunami in paradise." Spencer muttered. Gideon put his hand on Spencer's shoulder to comfort him as he reassured, "You guys'll get through it."
Spencer sent him a weak smile and nodded his head. Spencer wasn't so sure. He was perfectly comfortable before with the fact that he loved Valentina before she felt the same. The main issue was that he thought that she had finally reached that stage in their relationship. He assumed based on behaviour that Valentina loved him too. If he was wrong about someone he loved, he doubted what he could do professionally. Not to mention the searing pain of not knowing how his girlfriend felt about him.
Valentina and Morgan had just come back upstairs, Morgan shaking his head to indicate that there was nothing new downstairs and nothing that could help them. Since the two other FBI agents were back, Farraday needed to clarify something he had learned from them, "So, you guys think these killers are on a mission?"
"These unsubs think that they're on a mission from god or that the bible is guiding them somehow." Valentina explained, but she used vocabulary that local law enforcement wasn't exactly familiar with, so Farraday needed to ask, "Unsubs?"
"It stands for Unknown Subjects. The killers working as a team." Morgan explained so that he was up to speed completely with the case. They couldn't let small speed bumps like this slow them down. Farraday then pointed out, "Sounded to me like only one of them was into the mission."
"It's usually more complicated than that. In the case of Dick Hickcock and Perry Smith, Perry was the subservient personality, basically against even entering the Clutter home, yet he was the one who was almost single-handedly slaughtered the entire family." Spencer explained, giving an example so that this case was easier to grasp. Farraday, like many others who first meet Spencer, was slightly shocked and weirded out by how much he knew. Thankfully, Spencer didn't really get judged since Gideon brought the attention to him. "How many times was Mr. Kyle stabbed?"
"Stabbed isn't exactly the word. The gashes were all long and deep. Each victim had almost the same wounds-- both throats cut, a vertical gash up one arm, wrist to elbow, and a vertical gash down one leg from crotch to upper thigh." Farraday explained, having earlier gotten some information from the coroner. Gideon noticed, "Those are major arteries."
"Anyone with a basic understanding of the body would know where those arteries are." Spencer acknowledged. Valentina and Morgan started walking around the crime scene since they didn't see it when they first arrived. This did bring Farraday into another topic that was bugging his guilt, "This is an unincorporated area. We're stretched pretty thin manpower-wise. That's why we couldn't get here any faster."
"Four and a half minutes, that's a pretty good response time." Gideon acknowledged since they had seen so much worse, worse to the point that it was actually dangerous. Spencer added, "Yeah, that's on part with New York City. Four-point-three minutes."
"And they've got a lot more cops per capita." Morgan specified, Valentina also reassuring, "This unsub is really good. You didn't have a chance."
Morgan moved out to the middle of the room, then to the door, starting to run through this crime scene and the crime itself, "Okay, I know my partner called 911. The police are on the way, so I don't have a lot of time. Now, assuming Unsub One didn't actively participate, I gotta believe I entered the bedroom from here. I see Mr. Kyle on the other side of the bed, so I approach him. And I cut him first."
"How do you know that?" Farraday wondered, slightly skeptical, so Morgan explained, "A blitz attacker neutralises the greatest threat first. In this case, it would be the man."
"Plus, the 911 call, a woman screamed." Gideon pointed out, Spencer adding, "You can't scream with your throat cut."
Valentina continued on with going through the crime. She moved over to the bathroom where the wife had been killed and where there was a hand print on the door. "So, Mrs. Kyle would've had to see her husband get killed, so she ran back to the bathroom. She tried to close the door behind her, unsub forces his way in, and kill Mrs. Kyle in the bathroom."
"We checked that smudge for prints. Nothing. Looks like he wore some gloves, not with any pattern. Like latex maybe." Farraday pointed out, but that made Valentina furrow her eyebrows. "That makes absolutely no sense."
"It doesn't?"
"Unsubs suffering from a psychopathy, a delusion like a message from god, are what we would classify as being disorganised. They don't generally clean up after themselves." Spencer explained exactly what Valentina was thinking with Morgan adding on, "Maybe Unsub one, the frightened on, made sure they did."
All of a sudden, Morgan's phone had rang, but because it was Garcia, he didn't bother leaving the room. They all could only hear his side of the conversation, however. "Yeah, talk to me, baby girl...Yep...If a settee is a little couch...What? What's wrong?...A viral what?...Garcia, is there some point to this?...There's a video of this murder on the internet?"
Their expressions all changed with that last comment. Morgan moved towards the desk across from the settee that had an open laptop on it. He very slowly closed the laptop so that they couldn't be seen anymore. The unsub was watching them through the camera.
Valentina, Morgan, Spencer, and Gideon had all gone back to the station since they had gotten a call after this discovery that the unsub had set in a video to the police. They all needed to see it so that they could get a read on which unsub this was and what the message was. "He says the world is a cesspool. Greed. Lust. Disease."
The voice was passive and slightly nervous. The BAU was all huddled around the one desk so that they could hear it, all except Spencer, who was at another desk, rewatching the murder that had been posted online. Emily noticed, "That sounds like Unsub One."
"He says redemption must be sought. We must all repent." Morgan quoted, finding it quite relevant to the case, and Hotch adding on more relevancy, "And the 'he' referred to being Raphael or god."
"It's not god. It's probably someone sitting right there telling him what to say." Valentina argued, seeing that the religious tones of these crimes were incredibly distasteful and not what religion should be.
"As the Lord God spoke in Leviticus 26:18, 'and if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.'" Another voice spoke, which Morgan noticed. "That's a new voice. What, a third unsub?"
"It might just be a recording." Valentina acknowledged. There was something about these voices that was really familiar to her, it was almost irritating her. Gideon did bring to light a different part of the message, "Punish you seven times more means there's five more victims."
"These images were shot from the exact same spot on the dresser where that computer sat." Morgan noticed. The unsub had filmed these within the house, but they couldn't see who he was, only hear. But they already knew what the voices sounded like. Hotch questioned, "So, if this video came from that computer's camera, then what, did the unsubs bring it with them?"
"As far as I can tell, this computer belonged to the Kyle's. Garcia can do a better analysis, but it has their banking statements, vacation photos..." Spencer trailer off, seeing as how there wasn't much else he had found watching these videos over and over again. Valentina walked over to him to see the video, wanting to make sure that their reenactment was right. "One unsub came into the room and killed Mr. Kyle. The other unsub could have turned the camera on...if there is one?"
Valentina had muttered the last comment, so only Spencer heard it. Spencer learned during one of the first cases they worked together that Valentina thinks very outside of the box. She never disregards part of a profile simply because it doesn't make complete sense. If she can connect it, she'll consider it. Valentina was the one that discovered the religious undertones to an arsonist that no one else ever saw. Spencer knew that if there was something else going on here, Valentina would probably be the one to see it.
"We might be asking the wrong question. This video, this message, it's important. Clearly they want the world to see this. They need it, but they didn't bring a camera with them." Gideon acknowledged.
All of a sudden, Spencer stood up and moved away from the computer, then whispering to one of the agents that was working there and asked, "Agent Franks? Does this building have wireless internet?"
"Yeah, why?"
"That camera's on right now. The computer has connected itself to the internet, it's streaming a video feed somewhere." Spencer explained, which was concerning to everyone since that meant that the unsub was watching them again. Hotch spoke quietly, wondering, "Can we trace the stream?"
"If we keep it open, Garcia might be able-" Spencer cut himself off when the computer screen suddenly went black. In red, the words, 'the armies of Satan shall not prevail' flashed on the screen. The computer then suddenly turned off. "It turned off."
"So, they're controlling it remotely? Is that even possible?" Emily wondered, skeptical of these skills being shown. They called Garcia and put her on speaker since she was the technical genius of the group. "You can totally access someone's computer remotely. It's actually done a lot today. When a mortal calls for tech support, instead of giving you instructions, the tech can work on your computer from wherever she is."
"And they maintain the access even after the work is done?" Hotch asked, to which Garcia shrugged, even though they couldn't see her. "I suppose you could install a Trojan horse."
Everyone had a confused expression of sorts since they weren't familiar with these linguistics, but Spencer, who simply knows everything, cleared the air, "Something left in the computer to be turned on later. It's the same way that websites get pop-up ads onto your computer."
"Check the phone records and see if they called tech support in the last six months." Hotch ordered, Garcia obliging, "Right-o. And if you get me the laptop, I can search the drive for anything implanted there. And by the way, this video? It's gone crazy viral. It's the most downloaded video on the entire internet. Worldwide. And, judging by the responses, people seem to think it's pretty cool."
"Call us if you need anything on the Kyle's computer." Hotch offered as he too was disgusted by the world's desensitisation to murder. Gideon too was appalled, "Murder is entertaining?"
"They probably don't even realize it's real. People see so many images online every day. They might assume it's marketing for a horror film or something." JJ assumed that it was the only explanation because no normal, sane person would watch a murder they were aware of and were completely alright with it.
Valentina let out a breath. "Well, the unsubs were right about the one thing-- the world is pretty screwed up."
The team went back into the conference room so that they could go over everything they knew. They needed to take a few minutes just to review their information and make sure that they were all on the same page, and possibly come up with new leads. "So, what have we got so far?"
"Well, the killings are clinically efficient. And they had the earmarks of a slaughter as in an animal." Emily relayed the information she had gotten from the coroner, which was similar to what Valentina, Morgan, Spencer, and Gideon had heard from Farraday. Morgan did add the idea, "Or a sacrifice."
"We haven't been able to find anything in Federal or state databases that suggests similar crimes. As far as I can tell, it's the first in the series." Hotch informed, him and JJ not making much progress other than knowing that was the first kill.
"At least one member of the team may believe he's killing in the name of god, suggesting a psychopathy that should display extreme levels of disorganisation. Yet there are forensic countermeasures and somebody in control enough to do complicated computer work. One's organised, the other's extremely disorganised, but what's strange is that the one we would consider most in control, that made the phone call, can't seem to stop the other from killing. Usually, the frenzied personality takes direction from the cooler head." Spencer explained.
"Then we need to look at that relationship. Unsub One was the one that called the police before the killing, but that didn't leave time for them to get there. Is the phone call a defence in case of capture? I mean, maybe he didn't actually want to stop the killing, he just did what he had to to cover himself." Valentina suggested, trying to bring a new idea here, even thought she didn't fully believe what she was saying, but her other idea was even more out there.
"So, what do we have so far? Not enough."
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Valentina, Spencer, and Hotch were still in the conference room trying to brainstorm. Valentina had left to speak with Agent Franks and see if any recent open cases fit the small profile they had now and crosscheck MO's. The rest of the team was trying to work on victimology and see if there was something about the Kyle's that set off the unsubs, but they were doing that in the bullpen.
Once Valentina had gotten the information, she came back to the conference room where Spencer was sitting at the table and Hotch was standing by the evidence board. They looked to her for an answer since she was the person seeking one out, "So, there were no open knife cases that fit the marks on the victims."
"Tell me there's a 'but.'" Hotch pleaded, desperately hoping there was a bit of good news here. Luckily, he hired a unique thinker. "There is. I looked at the signature killing style a little differently. Instead of looking for murders, I looked at unsolved home invasions. Three months ago, there was this prowler called in directly outside of the Kyle's house."
"A prowler?" Spencer questioned with furrowed eyebrows, not having heard that description in quite a long time. Valentina nodded her head. "The witness in this case was walking his dog in a park nearby. He says he saw a man in dark clothing go over the back wall and sneak up to the house. But by the time the police got there, the prowler was gone. It was only one man."
"Was the witness able to describe him?" Spencer wondered, but still taking note of the fact Valentina was mentioning the fact that there was only one person involved. Spencer could tell that she was making a theory, and honestly, he was the only one that could tell. Whatever this idea of hers was, he wanted to know.
"If he was able to describe him, it's not in the case file."
"Is there a name and address?" Valentina looked back down in the file and responded, "Yeah, Tobias Hankel. He lives about an hour from here."
"It's a long shot, but he might be able to give us a description. Why don't you and Reid go out there and see if he remembers something." Valentina and Spencer looked to each other. They were still somewhat fighting-- more not speaking to each other. They didn't want to flat out say no to Hotch since that would make them look bad, plus, they didn't want anyone in their business. Valentina and Spencer didn't really want to spend an hour in a car together, but they had to be professional.
To this point, it was already evening, so while Spencer and Valentina were driving, it was starting to get darker. Valentina was driving, as she usually is, since Spencer doesn't like driving. Valentina was fidgeting with her hands while she was steering, just slightly tapping her fingertips. Spencer kept looking over at her hands since he knew that meant she was either nervous or thinking-- possibly both.
Spencer could see that her fidgeting wasn't too bad at the moment, but it has gotten to the point where she would start bleeding. Spencer didn't want it to get near there. Even if he was mad at her, he wanted to help her. Spencer put his hand on her thigh and lightly stroked his thumb along her leg. Valentina let out a small breath and moved her hands away from each other to nine-and-three.
"You have a theory about the case." Spencer acknowledged. Valentina looked to him for a moment, surprised he could see that she had something else on her mind. Although, she shouldn't be. Valentina pushed some of her hair behind her ear. She really didn't think Spencer would want to talk to her. "Oh...I don't know. There was just something familiar about it. It reminded me of, um...of Roycewood."
"Your abductor?" Even if Spencer didn't want anything to do with Valentina at the moment, he hated hearing about this part of her life. He hated when Valentina had to live through it all over again, he hated that she had to think about it. If this case was relating to her abduction, it not only made Spencer's heart ache for her when he wanted to be angered, but it also helped him be far more certain that Valentina was onto something.
"Yeah, he had multiple personalities. His voice would change when he changed, but it was still him talking. He might have sounded different, but the base...the base of his voice was still there. I could hear parts of him when he talked as both personalities." Valentina explained. She wasn't an expert in multiple personalities, but that specific case was when helped her develop such a keen talent for profiling and distinguishing behaviour, and also part of what got her into profiling. She knew how to distinguish two different voices from one voice changing.
"You hear one voice in both unsubs?" Spencer wanted to clarify her applicable example to the case, but Valentina corrected, "I hear one voice in all three."
"So, you think there's only one unsub pulling this all off and he just has three personalities?" It was the way Spencer had said this that made Valentina think he was simply humouring her idea. She didn't exactly appreciate him thinking she was wrong or off base here, but she had it wrong. "You don't believe me."
"No...I do. I trust you." Valentina looked over at Spencer again, who had his eyes-front. She looked back to the road quickly. Valentina felt sick to her stomach just being around Spencer because she knew she had hurt him. It was one of the most regretful feelings she had ever had in her life. Valentina knew that she was entitled to have time to figure out how she felt about Spencer, but it was the way she handled it that she was upset about. Valentina knows that she should have talked to her boyfriend rather than run away, so he had every right to be angry.
Upon arriving at the Hankel home, it was pitch dark. This farm was in the middle of nowhere, so they had no service, no extra lights, and nothing there to help them except the guns in their holsters and their own intuition.
Valentina and Spencer went to the front door of the old home and knocked on the door. They only had to wait a few seconds before a scruffy middle-aged man opened the door only a little, so all they could really see was him. Valentina needed to clarify that this was the witness, "Hi, are you Mr. Hankel?"
"Yes. Um, can I help you?" Tobias was clearly nervous about their presence, but Spencer and Valentina were trying to be as nonthreatening as possible. Valentina held up her credentials and introduced, "Mr. Hankel, we're FBI. I'm Dr. Barnes, this is Dr. Reid. Could we come inside and speak with you?"
"Um...I'm sorry. I don't let anyone in the house. My father doesn't like it." Tobias kindly denied, but it was the fact that he was still following the words of his father. It shocked Spencer. "Father? You're like thirty."
"At what age should one start disrespecting the wishes of their parents?" The way Tobias was speaking, his wording and cadence, was incredibly unique and timely. It was like as someone from the bible might, so they did take note of it, but Valentina knew that they still needed to talk to him about the prowler case. "Mr. Hankel, you witnessed something a few months ago that would be very helpful to us."
"I did?"
"Yeah, you saw somebody go over a wall and into a yard. You called the police to report it." Valentina informed, but he clearly didn't remember. He seemed genuinely confused. "Me?"
"Did you not?" Tobias shook his head with a regretful and apologetic look in his eyes. They could tell that he genuinely didn't do this just by his expression. Now, there was always the possibility that he could be lying, but Valentina and Spencer are both quite good at telling when someone is lying to them. Tobias was not.
"Is there another Tobias Hankel here?" Spencer wondered, earning a shake of the head. "Just me and my father, Charles."
"There is a report on file that lists you as calling 911. You were walking a dog..." Valentina tried to jog his memory or see if this was even him, but Tobias shook his head once more. "No, that's wrong. I don't have a dog."
Everything this man was saying seemed to be genuine. Even if he was a bit eccentric, Valentina and Spencer couldn't rule him as the unsub simply because they thought he was strange. Valentina sent him a small smile before bidding a farewell. "Well, sorry to bother you, sir. Have a good night."
"You as well." Tobias Hankel than closed the door quite swiftly. Valentina and Spencer were taken aback suddenly, but they did turn heel. As they began to walk off the porch, Valentina acknowledged, "That was weird. I mean, why would you bother calling the police in the first place if you're just going to pretend you didn't? He seemed like he was telling the truth, he genuinely doesn't think he did, but the name listed on file was Tobias Hankel."
"To gauge the response time." Spencer suddenly said. It was a little out of the blue and Valentina was not following his train of thought, so she furrowed her eyebrows with confusion. "What?"
"If you were going to kill somebody, but you wanted to call the police first, what would you need to know?" Spencer asked her, already knowing the answer, but he wanted to make sure she was on the same path. And she did know the correct response, "The police response time."
Very suddenly, far more than his random comment, Spencer turned around and rushed over to the side of the house. Valentina threw her arms up in disbelief, watching him just walk away. She looked around for a moment to make sure he wasn't going to get caught by someone else, possibly Tobias's father, but since no one was there, she followed Spencer to the side of the house. He whispered to her, "Val, I think he's the unsub."
Valentina saw what proof her had for that when she got next to him. They looked through the window and into the home where they saw Tobias pacing like mad in front of a desk filled with different computer screens showing the cameras of random people, clearly being watched the same way the FBI was before and how the murders were filmed.
All of a sudden, Tobias stopped pacing and looked Spencer dead in the eyes through the window. Upon realizing they had been caught, and so had he, Tobias rushed out of the house and made his way to his barn. Spencer very quickly ran after him, taking his gun out of his holster. Although, because Valentina was a little behind with this case and not really understanding what way Spencer was thinking, she didn't have her gun ready. Valentina didn't see him run to the barn as Spencer had, so when the two crouched by the door to the barn, Spencer nodded to the inside. "He's in there."
"Spence, are you sure?" Valentina hadn't seen this for herself, so she wanted to be absolutely sure, but Spencer, who was frustrated, on edge, and holding a gun, pointed out, "Have you ever seen me pull my gun out when I wasn't? Call Hotch."
"We don't have cell service, Spence, we're in the middle of nowhere." Valentina pointed out the obvious as she too took her gun out of her holster and readied it. She trusted Spencer just as he trusted her. If he said that Tobias Hankel was in the barn, even when she hadn't seen it, Valentina was inclined to believe it.
"Great. Of course we have no service." Spencer breathed out, this case not getting any easier as it went on.
"Well, what do we do?"
"I don't know. He's definitely in here. You cover the front, I'm going around back. Hotch knows we came here. He'll come looking for us. We'll just wait him out." Spencer suggested as he stood up to move to the other side of the barn, but Valentina quickly grabbed his arm to stop him. He turned back to her as she demanded, "What? No, we are not splitting up."
"What other choice do we have?" Spencer questioned, really not seeing any other solution to catch Tobias, but Valentina was thinking logically in a different sense, "Spencer, we don't have backup 'cause Hotch doesn't know something's wrong. We have no way of contacting anyone for help. There's a guy in there with multiple personalities, one of which being a violent murderer. We are not splitting up."
"Val-"
"What if I lose you?"
Spencer's expression softened, genuinely feeling guilty for wanting to go through with this plan. They liked working together as a couple, but they never considered how difficult situations like this would be. Spencer didn't want to lose her either, but he genuinely believed that they could catch this guy.
"You're not going to lose me. Ever." Spencer reassured. He kissed her cheek before running off to the other side of the barn. Valentina let out a breath and cursed in her mind, desperately wishing that Spencer hadn't come up with that. She wanted to stay with him, make sure he was safe, but now, she couldn't see him and Valentina would have to go through a killer to get to him.
Valentina raised her gun, getting herself ready in case she had to go in. She could hear a little in the distance Spencer trying to whisper-yell her name, but she couldn't make out the rest of what he was saying. She whisper-yelled back, "Spence?"
Suddenly, there was a crack from inside the barn. Valentina knew that Spencer wasn't going to answer her, since he wasn't. Valentina took a deep breath and turned on her flashlight that was attached to her gun-- she and Morgan picked guns like that specifically since they're the ones doing most of the running, shooting, and fighting. They need quick access.
Valentina went inside the barn, but she was cautious and took her time. Valentina moved slowly throughout, moving her gun/flashlight around to see all she could. There was no natural light coming in since it was night and there were no windows. All Valentina could see was old creaky chains, haphazard hay everywhere, it was a generally creepy barn.
Valentina couldn't see or hear Tobias or Spencer, which was making her even more tense. Very quietly, Valentina called out, "Spencer?"
There was no answer, but something did happen. Valentina felt something soft underneath her foot, which made her come to a complete stop. She felt like she knew what she was stepping on. Valentina slowly pointed her flashlight down and saw that she was stepping in a small pool of blood that had made the ground underneath, much less dense. Valentina scrunched her nose in disgust, but that was quickly cut off when she heard a growl.
Valentina's flashlight quickly moved up to a bloody mattress from where she heard the growling. There was blood, bones, and flesh from a victim scattered everywhere like a scene straight out of a horror movie, but on top was a dog. One of Valentina's greatest fears.
Valentina heard more growling and discovered two more rabid dogs that had clearly torn apart and eaten a woman since they were covered in blood. Valentina's heart started pounding faster and faster until one of the dogs rushed right at her, barking like mad. It jumped up at her, causing Valentina to fall onto her back. It scratched her arms and face, trying to get to her while Valentina defended herself, but she was struggling just before she was able to kick the dog off and shoot it. The other two dogs ran at her, but she hurried to her feet and shot the other two dogs.
Valentina didn't want to do it. She would never hurt an animal. But she was face to face with something that she genuinely feared with all of her soul and they were about to kill her. The greatest concern with Valentina was the fact that she was still holding her gun up towards the dead dog, tears forming in her eyes, her hands shaking, and her body not moving whatsoever. She was frozen in fear.
Completely frozen.
❝ 𝐢 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧'𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞. 𝐦𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲'𝐫𝐞 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐭. ❞
- 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒎𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒎𝒖𝒓𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒓, 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒓𝒚 𝒔𝒎𝒊𝒕𝒉
❘ ❙ ❚ ❚ ❙ ❘