The Trust Of My Life - A Spencer Reid Fanfic

Chapter 18: The Skinner

Spencer's POV

As I walk down the hallway to the conference room, I feel someone sling their arm over my shoulder. Turning my head, I see that it's Morgan, grinning at me.

"So, Pretty Boy." He begins. "How'd it go with Yang last night?"

"Great," I reply. "We had a lovely evening."

"And what exactly did you guys do for your lovely evening?" Morgan grins mischievously. "You came in looking kinda rough this morning."

I roll my eyes at him, knowing where he is going with this. "Derek we didn't do anything, alright?" I say exasperated, "We literally fell asleep watching a movie together."

"Alright, alright." Morgan chuckles, patting me on the shoulder. I enter the conference room and sit down next to Garcia, where she is organizing data on her laptop.

"Hey, Garcia." I give her a small smile.

"Greetings, Boy Wonder," she says cheerfully. "I heard that someone is dating a certain wonderful girl now." She giggles.

I can't help but grin at everyone in the room. "Let me guess, Morgan told you guys."

"We're happy for you." Prentiss puts a hand on my shoulder.

"It's time you have a girlfriend." Rossi slaps my back.

I roll my eyes. "I'm just glad that I finally met someone that makes me comfortable and myself."

As if on cue, Lina walks in. "Hey, everyone," she greets happily and everyone smiles at her.

"Yang." Hotch starts. "I heard about you and Reid. Congratulations."

"Thanks," Lina replies shyly.

"Just a heads up, I'll need the two of you to meet me in the office later to discuss some things," he states and glances over at me.

"Yes, sir," Lina and I respond and he nods.

"Okay. Garcia, you can start." Hotch looks at her.

"Skylar Moore, 45, and Felix Martinez, 42, were both found dead in the woods in Phoenix, Arizona. Both victims were skinned," Garcia announces. She clicks the remote and pictures of skinless men pop up on the screen.

"Oh, my God." Morgan looks away.

Prentiss is at a loss for words. "That is..."

"Yeah, I know." Garcia frowns and quickly switches to another screen. "Based on reports, Skylar was dumped 1 week ago, and Felix was found just yesterday."

"Flaying, or better known as 'skinning alive' was used as an execution method. Records of the practice go as far back as the Neo-Assyrian Empire, beginning in 911 B.C.," I state.

"The skinning was actually done postmortem," Garcia corrects.

"Then what was the cause of death?" Rossi flips through the case file.

"Blunt force trauma to the head."

"So the UnSub isn't sadistic," states Hotch.

"What's interesting is that on both bodies, the UnSub left a picture of him wearing the victims' skins." Garcia looks disgusted.

JJ's eyebrows shoot up. "I'm sorry, what?" Garcia clicks on her remote and a picture of a polaroid photo with a man wearing human skin pops up.

"So he's skinning his victims, then he proceeds to wear their skin." I scratch my chin, trying to make sense of it.