nina cried power [SPENCER REID]

thirty-three.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE:
THE ADVENTURES OF NINA SCOTT

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"It'sss -- noooot -- EASY having yourself a good time!" Nina burst, tipping her head back and shimmying down the corridor of the apartment. Her eyes are closed, and she bangs her fingers on an invisible piano as she spins into the kitchen. "You have great taste!" she shouts to the dying man in the next room.

He's crying -- loudly, actually -- so Nina turns up the volume on his iPod with a pained wince, drowning him out with the cheery notes of the Scissor Sisters. She rinses off her hands, swaying her hips in time with the steady bass beat, and then grabs herself a beer.

"I'm not a gangster tonight," she sings, uncapping it with a magnetic bottle-opened on his fridge door. "Don't wanna be a bad guy."

With a little hop in beat with the song, she saunters back into the lounge, shoulders swaying, head tilted back. She loves this song. The dead man is facedown on the carpeted floor, blood seeping out of him, and Nina stands by the door watching him struggle, sipping at her stolen beer, enjoying her stolen music. Rule Number Three of handling Edelstein's jobs: enjoy the little things that help you manage.

She has lots of rules now. Rule Number One: Do it quickly. Two: Don't sticks around. Three as aforementioned. Enjoy it, if you can.

I can't decide whether you should live or die. The lyrics are astoundingly appropriate. This is her third murder, but the first two guys hadn't taken more than few seconds to die, so she'd been surprised when this one had managed to cling on. Should she stab him again? Or just watch? She doesn't really want to stab him again, to be honest -- but watching him slowly drown in unconsciousness isn't fun either.

Legally, she wouldn't class this as murder. It's not quite premeditated, nor is it manslaughter. She's working for someone else, but she's also gaining something personal for herself. The words that define what she's doing blur more and more with every hit; hell, if she thinks about it all too much, the words disappear from her mind all together.

But she tries not to think about it at all. She plays music, she drinks, and when the job is done she drowns herself in fiction and clothes and travel and keeping busy -- like everyone else seeking escape.

God, she really should just get this over with, she decides.

With three long, purposeful strides, she crosses the room and stands over him, a foot on either side. "Such a drama queen," she mutters, tucking the iPod in the back pocket of her jeans.

Seizing a fistful of his greying hair with one hand, she rolls the man over on his back and flicks out the knife on her keys with the other.