❝ But I'm only human
and I bleed when I fall down ❞
The Behavioral Analysis Unit team around Aaron Hotchner gets called in to assist on a serial killer case in New York where they meet the young and surprisingly talented Special Agent Skylar Brown...
The following chapter might be viewed as disturbing to some of the readers.
!TW: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF ATTEMPTED SUICIDE, mentions of the last chapters, mentions of cancer, blood, mentions of rape and kidnapping, self-deprecating talk!
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Skylar woke up to a stronghold on her hands. For even the smallest second, she began to wonder if the events from before had simply been a string of nightmares. Maybe she had been just dreaming after all. Vividly dreaming, stuck in her hell of a panic attack. The steady beeping in the background though, the weariness of her limbs, and the drumming pain inside her leg proved to her that the last couple of days — or however long it had actually been — hadn't been a nightmare. She was in the hospital, tied to machines and intravenous tubes. Joshua kidnapping her was pretty much the reality of it all.
Upon arrival, doctors considered her state critical. She received a blood transfusion for the injury in her leg. The cuts and bruises were superficial. What worried the medical professionals was the bashing wound in her upper thigh — they stitched it and numbed it with each medication, but none of this could singularly make up for the heavy blood loss from hours of suffering. Her heart was strained from trying its best to keep her alive.
Emily promised to stay throughout every procedure. Even when they sedated her so she could sleep, she promised to stay. Now, there was a hand wrapped around Skylar's own when she found herself fighting back to consciousness. She gazed down. Emily was sleeping in her chair, one hand holding onto her, the other draped over her stomach. She sighed.
"If that is what being on my death bed would look like, I'm canceling my death subscription," Skylar joked half-heartedly.
It didn't take long for the memories to come back. She felt empty inside like she was already dead. Being alive is entirely different than living. Skylar wasn't living, she merely existed. An emotionless vegetable. The pain inside her soul ran too deep, not even the morphine could fix it.
Emily blinked. "You're awake," she said.
"Yeah."
"How are you?"
"Just peachy."
"And now the truth?"
Skylar sighed. "Hanging in there," she admitted. "But I guess it could be worse."
Emily rubbed her arm in a soothing motion. "That's good to hear," she said. "The, uh, nurse said she will be right back to take the blood bag. Doctors orders. You don't seem to need any more. And she will change your bandages."
