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I stared with the team that Monday, and while I was used to things moving fast, their version of ‘briefing’ was a whole new ball game. The first case felt a lot more like a dry run than anything. I honestly felt kinda useless. They all talked so fast, especially Spencer when he rambled facts or had revelations about something the rest of us didn’t understand. As promised, I was stuck in the precinct for the entire week practically, with plenty of badges around to watch me. And trust me, all of them did. I was back at the bottom of the food chain, a feeling I hadn’t experienced in almost a decade. It was infuriating, but I was just glad to be out in the world. Mostly.
Even though the team had supposedly voted to allow me to join them, it definitely didn’t feel that way. No one hardly talked to me. I mean, Morgan and Reid didn’t even so much as look at me, and when they did, it was only to give me a weird look every time I said something, even when I was right. Especially when I was right.
But I brushed all of that off when I realized what the next case was. We would be headed right back to Chicago, probably the last place someone like me wanted to be seen with Feds.
Garcia flashed three bodies up on the screen. “Abigail Meyers, Josie Wilson, and Mya Burns. All three were found in their backyards, multiple stab wounds, and their throats slashed.”
“Do you have an age on these girls?” Morgan asked.
“Yes. Abigail and Josie were 15, Mya was 14.”
“They had each been reported missing in the morning and were found dead later that evening,” Hotch said.
“Our unsub would have to be sophisticated enough to be able to get the girls back into their own backyards later that night without being detected by the cops or the parents, since they would all be on high alert for the girls to return in case they had just run off,” Reid said. “Any connection between the three?”
“Besides geography, I haven’t found anything, but as always I will keep digging,” Penelope responded.
“What is that in their right hand?” JJ asked. I directed my attention to what she was talking about. Garcia pulled up another photo zoomed in on their right hands. “Apparently, all three had been stabbed straight through their hand.”
“And our unsub just left the knife through their hand at the crime scene?” Derek asked.
“Switchblade,” I corrected before he could get his answer. They all looked over at me. “I’ve seen something like this before. It’s been a while, but this was the signature of a rival gang, the Angels, in Chicago before ours took it over.”
“Stabbing the girls multiple times and leaving the murder weapon was a gang signature?” Rossi asked me.
“No. Not the multiple stabbings. For a gang member that would take too long. But the blade through the hand? That’s definitely a signature,” I replied.
“Okay, so if this is gang related, why the rest of it? The kidnapping, the stabbing, the dump sight...” Jennifer trailed off.
“I don’t know, but three victims in five days? This guy clearly doesn’t need much of a cooling off period,” Prentiss chimed in.
“Exactly, which means we need to act fast. Wheels up in 30.”
When we landed, I went right to the precinct with Aaron and JJ. The rest went to the crime scenes or to talk to the ME.
“I’m SSA Hotchner and this is Agent Jareau and Chambers,” Aaron introduced. The head of the department shook my hand, but held it for a little too long.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” the man asked me.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t believe so.”
“Are you sure? I feel like I know of a Chambers,” he pressed.
“Sorry. I think you’ve got the wrong girl,” I replied. He must’ve been new because if he had been there even two years ago, I’m sure people still would have been talking about me. I was just thankful the FBI made good on their promise to keep my escape and new employee status under the rug. JJ and Hotch looked at me, but I just shrugged them off. As if they didn’t already know I enjoyed lying to new people about who I was. I followed them into the office where we were supposed to set up. They already had a board up with pictures and information about the victims. That’s when Garica called.
“I regret to inform you of this, sir, but another girl has just gone missing. Her name is Jayana Orion…” I stopped listening. Jayana Orion. I hadn’t heard her name in a while. She was supposed to be my responsibility. When her mother, Sydney, one of the only real friends I made during my 7 years on the streets, died, she asked me to do one thing for her, and that was protect her daughter. Of course, Sydney’s husband, Todd, was still around to help take care of her, but she knew that I would be able to handle the possible threats to Jayana better than he would. Instead, I made a dumb decision which left me in a prison where I could no longer help them. And now I had completely failed her.
“... Chambers?” I was snapped back to reality, Aaron trying to get my attention. “What do you think?”
“Sorry, about what?” I asked. I was going to have to compose myself if I didn’t want them picking up on this.
“Reid called from the ME saying that each girl had cocaine in their systems. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Other than cocaine being a popular street drug, no,” I said, still distracted. “Do we know anything else about Jayana?”
“Garcia is looking into it and Rossi is talking to her father now. If he sticks to schedule, we have until tonight to find her.”
“So according to their phone records and laptops, all three girls were talking about how unhappy they were with their parents, but I’ve found no contact between them that is the same,” Garcia said.
“All of their parents agreed that they had been distant lately,” Rossi said.
“So, what? These girls get mad and just decide to run? It sounds to me like this would have to be a stalker,” Prentiss said.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t fit with our gang affiliated profile,” Jareau said.
“Well maybe we got it wrong. Maybe this guy isn’t gang affiliated and just picked up on one of their signatures. I mean, there are no markings claiming responsibility, and no MO that matches a gang to the T,” Morgan offered. I could tell by his undertone that he somewhat enjoyed the idea of me being wrong.
“I still don’t understand. Why the shallow cuts on the arms?” Rossi asked. The room went silent and out of habit, I started scratching my own arm. Wait, my arm. That’s when it hit me. The cuts, the cocaine, the blade through the hand, the backyard...
“Garcia, are you still on the line?” I asked.
“Sure am,” she called.
“Where did you say their phones pinged from last?” Garcia started rattling off places as I dotted them on the map. I could feel the stares on my back as I worked. I turned to face the team. “I think this guy is trying to initiate these girls.”
“What?” Morgan looked at me like I had grown a third arm.
“Yeah. The last place these girls phones pinged are from designated street corners. Each girl stood at a different pick up zone for the Angels initiation. I didn’t immediately put it together because the Angels have been disbanded for almost 8 years. During most initiations, new members ditch their phones, and are forced to take some sort of stimulant or hallucinogenic to make them more compliant. Usually new recruits are asked multiple questions while under the influence so the gang can gage if they think they will be loyal to them or not. If people don’t pass they are usually just released. Traitors, on the other hand, are punished severely. They are usually dumped at a place of significance to them or their partners as a warning. In this case, the place of significance is their own backyard. The blade through the hand was just a way the Angels marked their traitors,” I said.
“So while this guy has them, he initiates them, and then thinks they have betrayed him in some way,” Derek said.
“Which causes him to lash out, which is why we see the overkill, but continues with the rest of the procedures,” Spencer finished.
“That’s great and all, but we still don’t know why he cuts their arms,” Rossi pointed out.
“Well, most initiations have recruits cut themselves and bleed on to, or in to, something of value and importance to the gang, solidifying their loyalty. Plus, most veteran gang members have plenty of cuts on their arms from training accidents or rival gang encounters,” I answered, realizing too late what I’d just invited everyone to do. They all dropped their gaze to my forearms to confirm my theory, which were exposed due to my rolled up sleeves. I quickly tugged them down to cover the small scars littering my arms.
“So that explanation does fit, but how is he finding his victims? Garcia said she found no mutual contact between the girls, but he would have to have some sort of prior contact with them for them to know exactly which street corner to stand on,” JJ said.
“Or maybe these are just victims of opportunity? If these girls ran from their homes, they could have just ended up on the wrong street corner,” Prentiss suggested.
“Or what if there’s a second unsub?” Aaron said. “We profiled initially that this was a gang member. We then completely contradicted our profile and changed to a stalker who would know they were unhappy at home and were just waiting for them to get out of the house. But we could be looking at one of each. A stalker who does all of his contact in person, letting them know what street corner to stand on, then either he or the former gang member picks the girls up and brings them to a second location where they are initiated and killed.”
“Okay, so if there are two of them, finding the stalker is going to lead us to our killer. But where would he go once he’s already delivered a girl to the gang member?” Derek asked.
“He’s probably already stalking his next victim,” Reid said.
“Maybe not,” I proposed. “At the rate these guys are working, they would have already had to know who they wanted to take. I mean, I don’t think this stalker guy can figure out that these girls are having constant trouble at home in just under 24 hours.”
“So what are you thinking?” Emily asked.
“In a gang, there are multiple levels of people. The people in charge of recruiting usually have a certain block or region that they cover looking for vulnerable people they can recruit. So once this guy sees these girls out and around his area, he takes it to another level by stalking them, probably at night when they are with their family. But during the day? He could still be scoping out people in his region,” I said.
“So how are we going to narrow it down? There are plenty of creepy guys on the streets to choose from,” Emily said.
“True. But if things haven’t changed too much in the past 4 years since the last time I was here, I’m pretty sure I know someone who can help us out.”
It took a lot of convincing for Aaron, and frankly the rest of the team members, to agree to this. I wasn’t supposed to be out in the field, definitely not this soon after joining the team, but I knew someone who could help and we were running out of time. Deen had been a loyal member of the Cloaks and later joined my ring of elite criminals as an expert in laundering money. He was one of the most important pieces that kept the streets going. While he was great at laundering, he was better at listening. Somehow, he just seemed to hear and pick up on everything. I knew that if agents showed up, or even if I showed up with one, there was no way I was getting any information out of him. Hell, I was worried he wouldn’t even talk to me alone after this many years. But it was my best shot if I wanted to save Jayana.
“We’re going to a bookstore?” Morgan questioned.
“It’s his front,” I answered. It made me uncomfortable to have to give the FBI this much information on Deen. He and I always worked as a well oiled machine and I wasn’t ready to betray his trust. I was trying to give out as little information about him as possible. I hadn’t even told them his name.
“We are going to have to wire you,” Aaron said.
“No! You can’t do that,” I said.
“We can’t just let you in there to talk to some old gang friend without a wire,” Aaron said.
“You have to. I mean, I’m even worried that he’s not going to talk to me after this many years, and if he’s heard anything about my escape or joining the FBI, which there’s a chance he has, the whole plan is screwed. Plus, he’ll probably know that I’m wearing one.”
“How? Unless you alert him that you're wearing one, he shouldn't know,” Morgan stated.
“If he doesn’t know, he’ll probably check. Then we’ll lose him as a reliable contact now, and potentially in the future,” I countered. “Plus, you already have Reid and Jareau in there pretending to be customers in case anything goes wrong, or you think I’m going to try something.”
I had a point and they both knew it. It wasn’t like I was walking into a trap or like he’d set a bomb in there or anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had set a bomb for emergency purposes, but the team didn’t need to know that. If anything, he was sitting in the middle of my trap, which had always been one of my specialties. The car slowed to a stop and I got out about a block from the store.
“Remember, you are going in there for one purpose and one purpose only,” Aaron started.
“To figure out where this stalker guy is. Yeah. I got it,” I said. I crossed the street catty-corner and pushed open the glass doors. I immediately spotted Reid standing in one of the isles, skimming through a book, and JJ sitting down in a chair just a few feet from the entrance. Neither turned to look at me, already getting the message through their ear piece that I’d entered the building. It felt stupid that this seemed like a whole undercover operation when all I was doing was talking to someone who could help us save Jayana. But I guess it showed how much they didn’t trust me, and the people I was in contact with.
I confidently walked over to the customer service desk and looked the kid up and down. He was probably just out of high school and was definitely a new recruit.
“Hey, can I speak to your manager?” I asked.
He looked up at me. “Is there a problem?”
I grabbed the hem of my t-shirt and the top of my waistband and quickly flashed him the tattoo over my left hip bone. His eyes went wide. “No. There’s no problem. I would just like to speak with him if that’s alright.”
“Uh, sure, ma’am. I’ll, uh, be right back,” the kid croaked, stumbling over his words and rushing toward the door that was labeled ‘Employees Only.’ The tattoo was of a double infinity sign inside a two-ringed circle. The symbol on the left hip bone identified who was a part of my underground ring. The second ring of my circle signified that I was the leader. Deen had a second ring with dashed lines, to show that he was second in command, and as of now, in charge.
I recognized his walk first. Deen had been shot in the knee and it never healed correctly, so he always had this extra bounce to the way he walked. He shaved all of his facial hair and let his jet black hair grow a little longer than I was used to. But his cat-like green eyes were exactly the same. I almost felt relieved when he pulled me into a giant hug. He was just an inch or so shorter than me, which always made me smile when he had to reach slightly up. You’d think all gang members were cold-hearted and ruthless, which Deen could be at times, but he’d always treated me like a younger sister. A younger sister who was in charge.
“Damn, girl! It’s been too long. What the hell are you doing here, I thought for sure you’d be eaten alive in there!” God I’d missed that slight Spanish accent.
“Oh how I have missed that confidence boost,” I teased.
“You know that’s not what I meant. You could kick anyone’s ass any day. Including mine. But seriously, what are you doing here?” He quickly dropped his voice and his expression became more serious, losing the slight shock that was there a few moments ago from seeing me for the first time in a while.
“I wish I were here under better circumstances,” I started.
“But when has that ever worked out for us?”
“Very true,” I agreed. I leaned in closer to him and dropped my voice to a whisper. “I actually need some information.”
“What kind of information?”
“I’m looking for someone.” Deen glanced around the room and his eyes landed on Reid and Jennifer.
“What is going on?” he asked. I knew that he was going to start putting things together soon, so I had to get him to focus on the matter at hand.
“You remember Sydney, yeah?”
“Of course. How could I forget her?”
“Her daughter, Jayana, is missing,” I said.
“Well, have you spoken to Todd?”
“Yes, do you think I’m an idiot, of course, but he doesn’t know anything.”
“You don’t want me to answer that,” he responded playfully. I’d missed our ability to banter in the middle of a crisis, our way of keeping each other’s head above water. “So what do you need my help for?”
“I need you to help me find a guy.”
“There are a shit ton of guys around here, you’re going to have to be more specific,” Deen said. I rolled my eyes at his dry humor.
“Yeah, you jackass, I know that, but if you’d just shut up and let me finish. You remember where the Angels used to set up? The corners where they’d pick up new recruits?”
“Sure.”
“Well, have you seen anyone you don’t really recognize hanging around those spots?”
“Alionth-” he started.
“Aundreya,” I quickly corrected. I flinched slightly at the sound of the stage name I’d given myself once I took over the gang and pushed it way underground. I hadn’t heard it in so long and I didn’t want to be reminded of the last time someone used it.
“Come with me,” he commanded, taking my hand and dragging me behind the ‘Employees Only’ door. “What is going on? You show up out of nowhere asking for information on a guy that I’m sure you could scope out yourself, ask me to call you by your old gang name, and there are two customers in the store who have been here for too long and kept glancing over at us. What has happened to Jayana and why are you here?”
I knew he would start picking up on stuff. “Look. I’ve been out for only a few weeks-” I started.
“Oh yeah! That too! How the hell are you here because I’d bet my life they didn’t just let you go,” Deen asked. He stared right into me, daring me to lie to him.
“I escaped,” I said. His face contorted and he took a small step back.
“You what now?”
“You heard me.”
“That’s impossible. Most people can’t even get out of normal prison let alone ADX.”
“Well I’m here aren’t I?”
“How’d you do it?”
“Can we please focus?” I was getting restless. I knew they were only going to give me a limited amount of time out of sight and earshot before they burst in. Plus, I could feel the time slipping by, each moment as important as the last if we were going to find Jayana alive. “Look. Jayana is my responsibility. It was the last thing Sydney asked me to do and she is in a lot of trouble. If you do not help me, I will have failed Sydney’s dying wish of protecting her daughter. So will you please just answer my questions?”
Deen gave me a skeptical look, but based off the one I gave him, he knew better than to keep pressing for answers. “Yeah. I’ve seen a guy hanging around.”
“Do you know his name?”
He hesitated before answering, “Ben-somethin’.”
“Could you describe him to me?”
“Short, probably my height or a little shorter. White. Dressed like a bad boy wannabe. And now that you mention it, he was hanging around the Angels' old spots.”
“During the day?”
“Sort of. He’d be there early in the morning, then leave during the middle of the day, come back in the evening, then leave during the middle of the night. Like clockwork,” Deen said. I could always count on him to be observant.
“Would you happen to know where he is now?” I asked.
“Those aren’t customers in my store, are they?” he replied, changing the subject. Instead of answering him, I put my hands behind my head and turned around. “Don’t worry, I know you’re not wired. I already checked that.”
Right, the hug earlier . “So you’re telling me you didn’t actually want a hug?” I pouted.
He laughed. “No, I did. It was multi-purpose.” We stood there staring at each other for a while before I decided to break the silence.
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t tell them anything about you, not even your name. I tried my best to shield your face from them as well,” I said.
“And as long as I help you out, I’m in the clear,” Deen finished my train of thought. I nodded. He was handling this a lot better than I expected. Maybe leadership over the course of the past four years helped mellow him out. “Damn. I’d heard rumors but I thought that was all they were.”
“I’m still the same person you knew from four years ago. Still doing what I have to do to survive in the best way I can.” He was silent for a while, probably trying to gage how much he still trusted me. “Please, help me. Help Jayana. Just tell me where you think he’d be, and I will get out of here and take those unwanted customers with me.”
He started nodding. “Fine. Fine. I think he’s moving in a star pattern. Starting at the bottom left, then moving up to the point, bottom right, and so on. I still can’t figure out his pattern when it comes to picking up the girls, but if he’s keeping to his usual schedule, he should be at the far right point today. But,” he said checking his watch, “not for long. You might have 40 minutes max before he leaves again.”
I did my best to retain everything he told me. “Wait, how long have you been watching this guy? I mean, how many girls has he picked up?” Deen was like no other when it came to tracking patterns and people on the street, but not even he was good enough to figure out something that intricate in 5 days.
“I don’t know. A couple months or so. I didn’t start realizing he was picking up girls until a few weeks ago.” This had been going on for a couple months? Where were all the other girls then?
“Thank you so much for this. I hope I can come back soon under different circumstances,” I said, already halfway out the door and back into the store. He came behind me and grabbed my arm, turning me so that I was looking at him.
“I hope you can too, Aundreya, but I swear to God, if anyone finds out I cooperated with Feds, or this place goes under because of this-”
“It won’t. And once they trust me more there will be no reason for them to be on my back all the time and I can come here without a plus two. And if something happens, which it won’t, but if it does, you know how to contact me. Over my undead body,” I said. Deen gave me a half smile at our old phrase, which we used to remind each other that we were loyal to the end. Lucky for us, the end always seemed to mean that of our enemies.
“Over our undead bodies,” he said with a nod. I walked toward the entrance where Spencer and Jennifer were still acting like customers. They were supposed to wait until I had exited, then slowly make their departures after me to try and make it look natural. But considering Deen already knew, and as a show of good faith to him, I decided I’d make it easier.
“C’mon guys. Let’s get outta here,” I said, waiting by the door.
They both looked at me like I’d lost my mind, Jareau opening her mouth then shutting it again.
“He already knows. I told you he would. For once, let’s make it easy on ourselves,” I said, holding the door open for them. Reid let out a frustrated sigh as he pushed past me, avoiding eye contact. JJ walked out after him. I quickly scanned the room one last time, but Deen had already disappeared again, and the young boy was back at the front desk like nothing had happened. “You’re doing a good job, kid,” I said to him, and he smiled shyly at my words. I gave him a single nod, then followed the other two out the door.
“What were you thinking?” Reid said harshly.
“What? The guy knew,” I stated.
“But what if he didn’t know? You would have just blown our cover,” Spencer said, the frustration having never left his voice. His upper back muscles around his shoulder blades and traps started twitching, a tell of discomfort I had gotten used to seeing.
“Well he did know, so it was worthless to waste time,” I replied, still following behind him.
“What if it was a theory he had, and you just confirmed it,” Spencer countered.
“Even you don’t believe that. If you did, you wouldn’t have phrased it as a hypothetical. Plus, the quicker I can get your irritatingly large brain back on topic, the quicker we are going to find Jayana,” I pointed out. We reached the car where Hotch and Morgan were sitting, and I recapped everything Deen had told me. Reid called Garcia to update her and start searching for ‘Ben’s in the area with a track record. The rest of us quickly moved towards the corner this Ben character was supposed to be at. We paired off and started canvassing the area. We’d looked for about 30 minutes and found no one.
“How reliable is your guy?” Morgan asked me.
“Reliable.”
“You sure? ‘Cause we’ve been looking for a while and none of them fit the profile or description.”
“Yeah. I’m sure,” I replied. According to Deen, we only had about 10 more minutes or less to find this guy before he took off.
“Has Garcia identified anyone yet?” Aaron asked.
“No, not yet. There are plenty of ‘Ben’s around,” Morgan answered.
“What if we start looking at cars? If this guy is going to leave soon, and based on the distances he’s going, he’s most likely got a car, probably a van,” JJ offered. We paired back off and went around looking for weird people around vans. Which was a surprising amount. Aaron’s phone started ringing, a call coming in from Morgan.
“He’s got him,” is all he had to say before we were both running back to the SUV where Morgan was already pushing a man into the backseat.
“Ben Brady, 30 years old, with a history of peeping and a restraining order from his ex-girlfriend,” Penelope informed us.
“He fits the description,” Aaron said, as we looked at him from behind the one way glass.
Derek stepped out of the interrogation room, the third to do so. “He’s not gonna talk.”
“We have to keep trying. He knows where they are,” Aaron said.
“I’m telling you, we have got to start looking for other leads, because I even offered him a deal, and he still wouldn’t budge,” Derek said with just an undertone of defeat.
“I could talk to him,” I suggested. If we had already broken the rules by having me out in the field, we might as well just break them all, right?
“No. I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Aaron told me.
“Have you even ever interrogated someone before?” Rossi asked.
“Sure.”
“Sure? What does that mean?” Rossi pressed.
“It means that while I might not have FBI regulated training, I have interrogated people before. Plus, I think he might be a bit more accustomed to my methods,” I put out there.
“What makes you say that?”
“Oh, come on. I can smell the hood rat from here,” I said, scrunching my nose. Despite the fact that he looked like a middle class man that could have accidentally gotten involved with the wrong person, I could tell that wasn’t the case. Rossi’s eyebrows shot up. “What? Isn’t that what you hired me for?”
“I guess,” he replied.
“Hotch, isn’t this against protocol?” Derek asked.
“Yes, but I’m pretty sure letting a young girl die because the person who could be most useful in a situation like this isn’t allowed to talk to the guy in her field of expertise, is also against protocol,” I answered for him. When I received no protests, I went to my bag and pulled out a notepad and pen and set it on the table right outside the door.
“What’s that for?” Rossi asked me.
“We’ll need it later.” I hope. I continued to shuffle around in my bag until I found what else I was looking for. I put on the 6 chain bracelets and the two rings made up of small beaded links on my left wrist and pinky.
“How about those?” Derek asked.
“A means of persuasion.”
“Wait you’re not going to-”
“Calm down. I’m not going to beat him up or whatever crazy thing you think I’m going to do. These are just a form of identification,” I interrupted.
“Okay, but what are they,” Derek asked.
I turned to look at him and saw Reid approaching the group, and decided to let him explain, “Why don’t you ask Doctor Reid.” I turned and entered the interrogation room before anyone could stop me. I didn’t even have a file or pictures to show him, but I didn’t need them. I sat down across from Ben.
He looked up at me, “You’re a little bit young to be working for the FBI.”
“You’re a little bit old to be hanging out with 14 year old girls,” I retorted. He looked back down. I knew that he was probably part of the Angels before the Cloaks took them over, and that he probably left to either fend for himself, or join a different gang. I was hoping for the latter.
“Gaela,” I said. He shot me a quick glance. Good. He was from the Angels if he recognized the leader’s last name. Now I just had to throw out others to figure out if he was in a new gang or not.
“Dimitrov, Carden, Dominic,” I listed. No reaction.
“Novak.” Still nothing.
“Hoeye,” I said. There it was. The slight eye shift in my direction. “Ooh. I don’t think he’d be very happy if he knew that you and your buddy were going rogue.”
“I’m not going to talk to you,” he stated. I stared him down for a few moments before lifting my left arm so that he could process the jewelry covering it. His eyes went wide.
“Are those-”
“Yep,” I cut him off.
“And you have-”
“Yep.”
“Which makes you-”
“Yep. In the flesh,” I said with a smirk. He immediately shifted in his seat, becoming exponentially more uncomfortable. “Now do you feel like talking?”
“Oh, uh. Um, no. What are you doing helping the FBI?” he said flustered, but trying to regain his ground.
“Does that sound like any of your business?” I hissed.
“No, but-”
“No. It’s not. And from where I’m sitting, you’ve got two options. Give me what I want, or maybe I’ll decide to pay your friend Hoeye a quick visit.”
“You can’t. The FBI’s probably got you under intense surveillance.”
“That could be true. But considering they’re probably going to spit me back out by the end of the week landing me back on the streets gives me all the flexibility I’d need,” I squinted my eyes at him. I could tell his confidence was starting to waver and he was beginning to give in to me. Just to fully sell it, I pushed my hair behind my left ear, turning my head to expose that part of my neck as I did. It revealed the tattoos that indicated I’d been to a supermax prison and that I’d escaped. “Your move.”
He swallowed hard and started shifting his eyes around as I moved my hair back to cover the tattoos. I couldn’t forget that there was a secondary audience. I leaned back in my chair. “So, Ben , if you’ve heard of me, you’ve probably heard of some of my pet-peeves, right? Do you remember what one of them was?” I asked rhetorically. “One of them, is that I absolutely cannot stand people who waste. My. Time. Does that ring a bell?”
He shifted in his chair and started rubbing his hands together. I was close. “Have you ever heard from one of those lucky people about the pleasant things that happen to them? Especially if they were to piss me off enough after, say, elaborately getting a young girl killed?”
Morgan was right, though. He was a tough one to crack. “She’s only 14,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, and you were only 14 when you landed here and you did fine for yourself,” he countered, but his voice was faltering.
“True. But one of us has a chance of getting out. Which one do you think that is?” I pointed out. He just sat there. I got up out of my chair and walked over to him. I placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned in so that he could practically feel each word falling from my lips. “Just remember this moment, when you had the choice of self preservation, the number one rule on the streets, and instead you chose blind loyalty. He’d turn you in in a heartbeat, and he’d be smart to do so. He’ll probably move up the ranks, and get the credit he deserves. I mean, that’s what I did. But you? You will just be added to the long list of disposable low-lives who died by my hand.”
I slowly started walking away, giving him the chance to stop me. I reached for the handle of the door when I got what I wanted. “Wait,” he said. I turned around and took my place across the table from him.
“Do you have paper and a pen?” he asked. I smirked at him and lifted my left hand up like I was a waitress at a restaurant. I hoped someone got the memo because it would only add to the power I held over Ben if it looked like I already had the FBI wrapped around my finger. Luckily, I heard the door click open and the pad and pen were placed in my hand. I could tell from the shoes in my peripheral and the scented cologne that it was Rossi who did so. He quickly vacated the room. Without breaking eye contact with Ben, I put the pad down on the table with a satisfying slap. I pushed it over to him with the pen.
“So you really earned all of these?” he asked, suddenly grabbing my wrist and turning it over to admire the number of beads. He was looking at them in wonder and it was disgusting. I yanked my wrist from his grasp.
“Just start writing,” I said, and he did. He wrote down the address and a full list of all the girls they had taken over the last few months. He shoved it toward me and, as expected, ‘Jayana Orion’ was scratched down at the bottom. It made me want to hit the guy in the face right there. I looked over the list but there was one thing he forgot to add.
“Do you think you’re smart or something? Don’t try to bullshit me!” I yelled, as I walked over to his side of the table.
“I honestly forgot-”
“No you didn’t. Not. Smart. Complete the list,” I demanded. He frantically wrote down the name of his accomplice. Accomplice s ? There were two of them? “There. That’s better.”
“What are you going to do now?” he asked, but the concern was obviously only for himself.
“I guess I’ll consider not telling Hoeye about our little chat. As long as this holds up,” I gestured to his list, quickly raising my eyebrows at him before exiting the room.
Everyone was staring at me. “What in the hell was that?” Derek asked, but he didn’t sound necessarily irritated. I answered by turning the notepad around so that they could all see the list of information scrawled across it. I took a few steps toward Derek and I pressed the pad against his chest, with just a little bit of added force. I looked up at him.
“That was me saving a little girl’s life.” I walked out of the hallway and back into the bullpen to sit down.
Everyone started rushing around me, getting their gear together and leaving to go off and save those girls. Everyone except for Emily.
“Hey,” she said, sitting down across from me.
“What are you still doing here? Don’t they need you in the field?”
“Usually. But they’ve got about a hundred officers and the rest of the team headed out there. I think they’ve got it.”
“Ah. I see. You got put on babysitting duty,” I said. “Do you guys draw names out of a hat or something?”
She gave a single laugh. “No, not this time. I volunteered.”
“Oh, wow. Didn’t realize you had a thing for S and M,” I teased.
She rolled her eyes at me. “Is that what you really think? That you are that unpleasant to be around?”
“Yeah, pretty much. That’s the general consensus.”
Not exactly knowing how to reply and not wanting to push me any farther, she changed the subject.
“So you really got all those links?”
I was confused for a moment until I remembered that I was still wearing my bracelets and rings. “Oh. Yeah. Did the Doctor tell you about them?”
“Yeah. He told us that it’s a way for guards and inmates to track each other, kind of like a ranking system. The more you have, the worse you’ve been, and higher ranked you are. You received one for each time you went to the infirmary, sent someone to the infirmary, and a certain number for each type of crime you’ve committed. He also told us that the most anyone had ever gotten was four bracelets and a ring. You have that beat by a lot,” she recited.
“I do. Lucky me,” I said, removing them and placing them back in my bag.
“How did you know that you were going to need a pen and paper before you even went in to interrogate?”
“It’s almost like an unspoken rule as far as gangs go. People could be wired, so you don’t want to have to say things out loud. If the place has surveillance, you can easily just shield the paper from the cameras and a lot of people can write in code much better than they can speak it. Plus, once he knew I was The Figure, he would know that I always ask for extensive lists.”
“How did you know Rossi would come in and deliver the stuff to you?” she asked, almost in wonder. Almost.
“To be honest, that was a shot in the dark. It would help me scare him if it looked like I had power even over the FBI and I was just hoping one of you back there would pick up on it.” We were silent for a while before she asked me her next question.
“Do I want to know what you whispered to him?”
“Probably not,” I stated matter-of-factly.
“Alright, then would you tell me about your tattoos?”
I looked up at her. No one had ever asked me that question before. I must have seemed so dumbfounded because she showed me a tattoo of her own. It was on her right hip bone and it was of Saturn. Just two simple circles but you could tell it was Saturn.
“When I was young, I was always traveling places with my mom. I never really felt like I had one home and things were changing constantly. Whenever I got nervous before a move or I just couldn’t handle the stress of constant change, she would always tell me wherever I was on planet Earth, no matter how much things were changing for me, all the planets were still orbiting the Sun. Things weren’t changing for them, and I could always count on them to be constant. It helped keep me grounded and I like the reminder every now and then.”
It was a sweet story, and I knew it was my turn. “Pretty much all of mine are just for street-related identification purposes. None that have quite as good of a backstory. This one,” I said, exposing my right collar bone, “is for the Cloaks. This one,” I showed the one on my left hip bone, “is for my underground ring. Then I’ve got these ones on my neck,” I said pulling my hair out of the way for the second time, “which shows that I’ve been to a supermax, and then escaped,” I concluded. I wasn’t willing to tell her about the others.
“What about the one on your pinky knuckle?” I was hoping she wouldn’t ask, having just removed the rings that covered it.
“That one…” I trailed off. I was saved by the bell when she got an incoming call. It was Aaron, letting her know that they’d got the guys and were bringing them in. They’d found Jayana Orion, three other girls, and many more photos of victims-to-be. The four of them were on their way to the hospital.
“Let’s go,” Prentiss said.
I was confused. “Go where?”
“The hospital. We are going to meet them there and give their families an update.” I wasn’t given time to protest as she grabbed my arm, practically yanking me to the car.
At the hospital, Prentiss and the rest of the team went to the families of the other three girls to tell them what had happened, and were showered with hugs and words of gratitude. I sat in the farthest corner trying to make myself as inconspicuous as possible, (which wasn’t that hard given my talent for it) dreading when Todd would show up. Prentiss waved me over to where the happy reunited families were, but I shook my head. Clearly that wasn’t the response she was looking for, because soon she was dragging me over to the group. I stood there awkwardly while the rest of them soaked in the glory of four saved girls.
“Just so you know, the FBI isn’t going to spit you back out onto the streets,” she whispered.
“Yeah, sure. I just convinced their best team to break the only rules set in place for me within the first two weeks, and I’m sure I’ll manage to find some other ways to screw things up,” I responded.
“Don’t worry about the rules. You helped save four young girls. Now, just focus on not screwing things up,” she said with a sly smile. I rolled my eyes.
“Easier said than done, but, thanks. Best pep-talk ever,” returning the same sly smile.
That’s when Todd walked in.
“Where is she? Where is my daughter?” he asked no one in particular.
Jayana was unconscious in her hospital bed, JJ explained, but she should be fine and waking up within the next day or so. He thanked her and the rest of the team for finding Jayana when his gaze landed on me. His mood immediately shifted. Anyone with eyes could see the pure hatred radiating off of him. I swallowed and turned away.
“Aundreya,” he spat my name like it physically hurt him to say it. It probably did.
“Todd,” I responded, flicking my eyes over to him. He sauntered toward me until I could feel his hot breath in my face.
“Why are you here? You need to stay away from my daughter, you hear me?”
“Sir, she’s here because-” JJ started.
“I don’t give a damn why she’s here. She’s already done enough damage to my family. I don’t want her anywhere near Jayana. Ever again,” Todd said, enunciating each word carefully. He grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me towards him, so that he could whisper his next words in my ear. “If I ever see you again, or your existence causes any more problems for my family than it already has, I will hunt you down and kill you without hesitation.” He released my neck with force, practically throwing my head away from his. He opened the door leading to Jayana’s room, giving me one last fiery glance before shutting it behind him. I’d almost forgotten the rest of the team’s presence until I felt a hand on my back. I looked up into Emily’s eyes.
“See? I told you that was the general consensus.” I didn’t give her time to respond because I crossed my arms and forced myself to walk past JJ and Morgan and Hotch and Reid and Rossi to get to the exit. “I’ll meet you at the jet.”
I waited for about 20 minutes before the rest of the team arrived. I only had one bag of stuff that I kept with me at all times, so it wasn’t like I had to do any quick packing. They all arrived together.
“What the hell was that?” Derek asked as he quickly got out of the driver’s seat. That seemed to be the only thing he knew how to say to me.
“Back off,” Emily said.
“What? You're not the least bit curious as to why that guy hated her?”
“A lot of guys hate me,” I interjected.
Prentiss continued on like I hadn’t said anything. “Look, I just think that-”
“Both of you, stop it,” Rossi interrupted.
“All I’m saying is that I think we should get an answer,” Derek said, stubborn and persistent as always.
“You want an answer?” I offered, switching my focus to Prentiss. “The tattoo on my finger? It’s to symbolize that I’ve killed someone. Not only that, but I’ve killed high ranking, important people, and I’ve killed quite a few of them. I’ve caused plenty of trouble, and you’re profilers. You do the math,” I stated, somehow keeping control over my voice. I was shutting down and pushing them away like I did everyone else. It was easier that way. “So are we going to board the jet, or not?” They all looked at each other, mouths sewn shut, then slowly climbed the steps to the jet, closing the door behind them.