Isabel sat on her bed, staring at the window, watching the rain come down. She could hear the hail hitting the window, and wondered what was happening to the missing girl. Was she being kept outside? Was she safe? Was the Unsub just going to throw her outside and let the hail take care of her? Then again, maybe it wasn't storming wherever the girl was being kept. She pulled out her laptop, and looked up the weather radar and sighed. The storm was huge. Unless the Unsub was keeping the girl far away from where they were, she could be victim to the storm. Isabel just hoped she was okay, and that they would find her before the Unsub took her out.
*****************
Hotch watched as Reid led Ciara out of the police station, before looking around at the rest of his team. They were still a little shaken up after what had happened, especially Prentiss and JJ. Slowly, though, everyone got back to what they were doing before, which was trying to figure out anything they could about the Unsub. Rossi looked over at Hotch and came up to him.
"I know that look on your face. What are you thinking of?" Rossi asked.
"Were we too quick in deciding to let Ciara on the team? What if this job is too much for her?"
"What makes you question yourself?"
"She just had a psychotic break, David. Without an obvious trigger. What if this happens every case we are on?" Hotch asked, and Rossi shook his head.
"You told me when she was being transferred that she had a good handle on her psychosis? That she was able to control it?"
"Yeah. I thought she could."
"You know that the mind is a strange thing, Aaron. We all know this. Her mind wants to fall out of reality, but she's not letting it. That has to put an insane amount of stress and strain on her mind. It's like a dam, her mind is right now. The psychosis is the water, and she's holding it all back," Rossi reasons.
"But?"
"But there's a crack. There's always a crack in her psyche, no matter how much she's trying to deny it, and that's an object of her past. But when she controls her psychosis, it all builds up behind the dam, and eventually the crack can't handle the strain, and it all bursts open, and out comes the flood," Rossi finished, and Hotch knew he was right. But that didn't tell him what to do about it.
"I thought that we weren't supposed to profile the other members of the team?" Morgan chimed in from the other side of the room.
"He's right, you know," Prentiss added.
"I think Ciara might need it, though," JJ said.
"Thank you, JJ," Hotch said, before turning back to Rossi. "So what do we do? This break took her out for an entire day, and she took Reid with her, too."
"You told him to go with her." Hotch looked at Rossi, before sighing. Rossi smiled slightly, before looking at the wall that Ciara had been staring at earlier. "We can't do anything until we get back to Quantico. Once we get back, I think we need to get Ciara into therapy. Whatever happened to her has shattered her psyche, and she can't even begin to put the pieces back together without help. And while we are all experts in psychology, we aren't counselors. That's what she needs right now. Maybe she can learn other ways to deal with her psychosis. The point is, she needs to talk to someone."
"Can I force her into that, though? Even if I tell her she has to go to therapy, doesn't mean she will. And if she does, it doesn't mean she'll talk," Hotch said.
"That's true, isn't it?"
"Guys, we just need to find someone that Ciara trusts enough to open up to. There has to be someone, right?" Prentiss suggested.
"Akilah?" JJ wondered.
"No, Akilah told me that Ciara trusts her with her life, but she still won't talk about her past. According to Akilah, there is no one that Ciara trusts that much," Morgan said, leaving everyone back at square one. "We'll have to figure it out when we get back. For now, we have to find Imogen." Hotch agreed, and everyone went back to their duties until Detective Burns came back into the room.
"We're sending people home early. I think you all should go to your hotel," he said.
"We have a missing girl, and you are sending people home early? May I ask why?" Rossi asked.
"Haven't you heard? There is a massive storm heading our way. Flood warning just went into effect fifteen minutes ago until about one in the morning. Bloomington and Towanda are both expected to get hit hard. Hail damage is also expected. Most businesses are closing slightly early to keep everyone safe," Detective Burns explained, and Hotch nodded.
"Alright. We'll regroup tomorrow. Hopefully we'll have a little more information in the morning. I just hope nothing happens until then."
********************
"Hey, are you gonna be okay? It's a long drive to Towanda," he asked, and she rolled her eyes, laughing. He just wanted her to come home with him, but he had to know it was never going to happen, even if they were dating now. However, she had to admit that it might be nice to live in Bloomington like he did. He only had to drive a couple minutes and he would be home. She had to drive over ten to get back to her house. Over ten minutes in the storm. It wasn't raining quite yet, but she could tell that it was right upon them. It would start in a few minutes, which was why she was anxious to get back to her car.
"I'll be fine. If I leave soon I should be able to beat most of it home. Besides, my mom is expecting me. I'll text you when I get home, alright?" she asked, and he nodded, before grabbing her arm and pulling her close to him, planting a kiss on her forehead. "You really are a sappy romantic, you know that, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. If you forget to text me again, I'm gonna kill you," he laughed, and she laughed back. She felt bad that she was going to have to break his heart soon, but hers belonged to someone else. She had only dated him to try and distract herself from the other person, but she found that she couldn't. They split, him heading to his car and her to hers. They were on separate ends of the parking lot since she had to drive one direction and he had to drive another.
As she approached her car, she pulled her keys out of her pockets, twirling them on her fingers. She had a long, slow day at work, and she was ready to go home to her bed. She had been scheduled a lot more than she was used to since the three girls had gone missing... and two of them had turned up dead. She blinked back tears since the two dead girls were both friends of hers and Imogen... Well, long story short, Imogen was the reason she was breaking up with her boyfriend soon. Imogen knew this, and she was going to tell her parents, but then she went missing.
"Oh, you're kidding me," she grumbled to herself as thunder sounded, and the sky opened up above her. The rain started to pour down, hard, and she sighed as she quickly became drenched. She kept walking, hoping to get to her car soon so she could turn on the heater and maybe dry off a little bit before she got home. Now she wanted a hot shower and her bed. She continued to twirl the keys around her finger, wishing now that she had a newer car that had remote unlocking. However, she still had a 1993 Ford Escort, so she had to manually unlock the car. She wished now that she had brought an umbrella, but this storm had started to form after she had gotten to work. She stuck the key into the lock, but before she could turn it, something grabbed her throat. She gasped, and a hand covered her mouth. The last thing she remembered before everything went dark was the sound of hail starting to hit her car roof.
***********************
Ciara wasn't sure what the team would say when she got back to the police station the next morning, but she wasn't too keen on finding out. For once, she remembered everything that happened in the delusion she had had, and she even remembered everything after, from the flashback, to the nightmare, to finally telling Reid the truth that she didn't trust anybody. She hadn't meant to make him feel bad, which she was sure she did, but she just needed someone to know. While it was true that she trusted Akilah with her life, she didn't trust Akilah with her past. Ciara trusted pretty much nobody with her past. She could only think of one currently who she trusted with that information. She looked out the window of the hotel, watching as the sunlight glinted off of the huge puddles that had formed from last night's rain.
I wonder how badly Towanda got hit, she thought to herself as she heard Reid finally wake himself up. She was hoping that she wouldn't have to do it. She continued to look out the window until he told her that it was time to go back to the station. She nodded, and followed him out to the vehicle.
"Are you feeling better today?" Reid asked, and Ciara nodded. She truly did feel better. Lighter, in a way. Controlling her mind the way she did for too long stressed her out, and she had finally shrugged that stress off of her body. Although, she seriously wished that she could find a different way to alleviate that stress. As they both walked in, they found two things. They found that they weren't the first ones there, but they weren't the last ones, either. They also found that the station was a flurry of activity. Obviously something had happened during the night.
"Reid, Ciara, glad you're here. We had another girl go missing last night. 17-year-old Jeannette André. The mother said she never got home from work last night," JJ told them, and Reid and Ciara immediately set to work, Ciara completely forgetting her earlier anxiety. She didn't think that anyone was going to mention yesterday with the news of the missing girl. Ciara also forgot about the mortician calling at some point, and put her phone on silent as to not distract her. Reid did the same.
"Last night would have been the time to kidnap someone. Almost no one was out because of the storm," Ciara mentioned, and JJ nodded.
"Yeah, our Unsub figured that one out. Ciara, I was hoping you would come with me and Prentiss to talk to the André family and a potential witness," JJ requested.
"Oh, um, yeah, sure. I don't know of what use I'll be, but why not," Ciara said, and JJ smiled.
"You grew up in a small town, yeah?"
"Small town? Try village," Ciara responded.
"So you'll relate to these people. You'll know how to talk to them," JJ reasoned, and Ciara couldn't argue. Not that she wanted to. She hated arguing with people. As others started to come in, nobody said anything about Ciara's breakdown the day before, all of them knowing about Jeannette. JJ put a picture of Jeannette up on the board, and Ciara looked at the blonde, blue-eyed girl. Though the picture was obviously taken while Jeannette was at rest, she had a slight pout, and that combined with her last name told Ciara that Jeannette was of French descent. Ciara couldn't help but wonder if Jeannette had always lived in the United States, or if she was an immigrant. Soon, she left the station with JJ and Prentiss, going to Towanda to meet the Andrés and the potential witness. Before they left Bloomington, Prentiss got a call. In a few moments, she hung up, and JJ was the first to speak.
"What's up?"
"They found Jeannette André's car. It's not very far from where we are. Think we can swing around and take a look?" Prentiss suggested, and they all agreed. Soon, they were in the parking lot where Jeannette's car was.
"So she didn't get let off very early, huh?" JJ asked the police officer that was on the scene.
"No, apparently not," he responded, and Ciara started to look over the car. It was an older car, but still in pretty good condition. Whoever had it before Jeannette took really good care of it. She took a look inside, thanking her lucky stars that the windows weren't tinted. She found a book bag in the back, some random clothes and papers were strewn about, and a copy of Macbeth in the passenger seat. It was just the car of a random high school girl. There was nothing special about it.
"She was so close to getting away. Look, the keys are in the lock, but the car itself is still locked. Unsub must have grabbed her while she was unlocking her car. One bad thing about older cars. But I-mogen had a new car, so that's not what the Unsub saw in her," Ciara noticed, and JJ nodded. She put on the gloves that she brought with her and unlocked the car. She brought down the sun visor, and saw something interesting. "This is a picture of I-mogen, and Jean-nette and I-mogen aren't related. Why else do we think that she might have had a picture of I-mogen in her car?"
"Looks like the talk with her parents is going to be interesting." JJ and Ciara both nodded, agreeing fully with Prentiss. Did her parents know this, or were they completely in the dark? Ciara couldn't help but wonder if this is why they were being taken. They continued to profile what they could of the scene in front of them, but once they had everything they could find, they knew it was time to go to Towanda and find out what they could from the André family and the witness, who they had finally found out was named Grant Watkins. Ciara looked out the window of the police SUV as they left Bloomington, almost scared to see what kind of damage the storm had on Towanda and the farmland around it. She knew how much a simple storm could devastate a community. Once they left, it was easy to see. Ciara saw what would have been corn fields, but all of the stalks had been stripped by the hail, and the rows were completely flooded. There was nothing left except for empty stalks. There was nothing left to harvest. It was the same on both sides of the highway, all the way to Towanda. Nothing was left.
"Oh my God. This is terrible," Prentiss breathed as they entered Towanda. Tree branches littered the sides of the streets, having been hastily pushed off to make room for whatever vehicles there might be. Ciara saw that the runoff had been great, a ditch forming on each side of the street due to water. There was still plenty of standing water, seeing as it had absolutely nowhere to go. She saw cars with dented roofs and hoods due to hail, which had only added to the water. Trees had been stripped of most of their leaves, and as they passed a church, she saw that a few windows had been completely shattered by the hail. There was so much damage to this town, and Ciara knew that it would be extremely hard to fix it.
"Villages like these have no way to prepare for something like this, and they have no way to prevent it. They have no system in place for when it does happen. There isn't anything they can do when something like this happens except try to pick up the pieces, and that will take them a long time to do. But if I know a village like I think I do, they are all going to band together to do what they can," Ciara said from the back seat, and Prentiss looked in the rearview window at her.
"Did something like this ever happen at your hometown?" JJ asked.
"I grew up in Nebraska, JJ. I've seen just about every type of weather ye can ever imagine. Nebraska is one of the few, if not the only place in this country where you can build a snowman, go swimming, and have a tornado warning all in one week. Heck, I can't tell ye how many times it'll snow in the morning, but by the afternoon you could go for a swim, the snow completely forgotten. There isn't quite anything like Nebraska weather," Ciara explained. Prentiss nodded in the front, neither her nor JJ quite sure what to say to that.
"What about the farmers? Their crop-"
"There is nothing left of their crop. I don't know if ye noticed, but the corn has been completely stripped. I can't imagine that any beans or wheat fared any better. In fact, the beans and wheat probably didn't last nearly as long as the corn might have. Hopefully the farmers had insurance. If not... this is going to be a huge loss. It would be hard to bounce back from this," Ciara answered, and both Prentiss and JJ sighed.
"No family should have to deal with this. They shouldn't have to worry about keeping their daughters safe and then have a storm come and wipe away their livelihoods or damage their home," Prentiss said. Ciara shrugged, knowing that there wasn't anything they could do about it. Mother Nature had an interesting way of popping up at the worst of times. Finally, they came up to the André household, and as Ciara, JJ, and Prentiss got out of the SUV and walked up to the door, Ciara wondered what kind of a challenge this was going to bring.
So yeah, things just keep going down, especially in Towanda. The storm and the damage it caused is actually based on something that happened at my home recently, so that was was interesting to write about. So, this was the first time I've put a victim's P.O.V. into the story, and I'm not sure if I want to keep that or not. I'll think about that. That, and I haven't had Hotch's P.O.V. in quite a while, either. Do you think they'll actually try to force Ciara into therapy, or will they leave well enough alone? If they do try to force Ciara into therapy, how do you think it will go? Will it help her, or will it only make things worse? So yeah, I don't really have anything else for this chapter, so I guess...BYE!
"Therapy is about every kid's nightmare when people are telling you that you need to get help but all you really want is a hug." -Alex Gaskarth